Slowly but surely I am reducing the height of the must-listen pile. Here are short reviews of two keepers from the Tobias Hoffman Jazz Orchestra and violinist Jenny Scheinman.
Tobias Hoffmann Jazz Orchestra
Innuendo (Mons Records)
A review
With Innuendo, the second release from his jazz orchestra, German composer and arranger Tobias Hoffmann, now living in Vienna and Graz, offers an ambitious and fully realized original program. Its sophisticated compositions, performed with exceptional discipline by a cohort of sympathetic and virtuosic musicians, deliver richly articulated feeling refined in a deep musical intelligence. In short, it’s a knockout. Each of the eight robust, multifaceted compositions unfolds in a fluid and often surprising sequence of shifting color and feeling, developing a complex storyline. Hoffmann reveals himself to be an adventurous spirit whose broad harmonic palette, attention to detail, and extraordinary sensitivity to timbre, texture, and rhythmic interactions create arresting arrangements. Current favorites include “Bipolarity,” which shuttles between minimalism and classical; “The Lake,” whose hair-raising flugelhorn (Jakob Helling) and electric guitar (Vilkka Wahl) solos lift the orchestra to another level, or vice versa; and the through-composed “Perseverance,” with its highly complex interaction between the orchestra’s sections. Innuendo invites the ears to open and offers a stimulating experience that bears repeating. (Available on the usual streaming services, and in Europe, the CD can be ordered here.)
Jenny Scheinman
All Species Parade (Royal Potato Family)
A review
I’ve been happily familiar with violinist Jenny Scheinman’s exceptional work as a sideperson on projects with the likes of Bill Frisell and Allison Miller, but I am embarrassed to admit that I had not previously encountered her as a leader and composer. Her latest stellar release, All Species Parade, has remedied that and already has me checking out her previous work as a leader. Playfully inventive, deeply soulful, and frighteningly virtuosic, Scheinman has assembled a sympathetic and equally adept group of musicians to pay homage to the natural wonders of her native Humboldt County, California: Frisell (guitar), Carmen Staaf (piano), Tony Scherr (bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums), with guitarists Julian Lage guesting on 3 and Nels Cline on 2 of the album’s 10 originals. Fluent in all varieties of americana and high on jazz, this group matches perfectly with Scheinman’s sensibilities. At the center of the album is a three-part suite—“Jajoujiji” (the indigenous Wiyots’ name for the land that Eureka, California, sits on), “The Sea Also Rises,” and the high-simmer funk of the title track—that evokes the natural beauty and diversity of the region, as well as the threats to it. The remaining tracks range from the radiant “Ornette Goes Home,” to the burning “Shutdown Stomp” that invites you to the dancefloor, to the hovering wonder of “With Sea Lions.” In every track, Scheinman gives herself and her colleagues plenty of room to stretch out, and gives listeners another reason to keep listening. (Releases 10/11)
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