Back in May, at the New Mexico Music Awards, bassist Terry Burns introduced me to vocalist/songwriter Julie Christensen, and although her name was unfamiliar to me, the fact that she was a former backup singer for Leonard Cohen, as Terry had told me in advance, was all I needed to know to take a listen to her latest album, 11 from Kevin: Songs of Kevin Gordon. To call it a “masterpiece”—there’s a word I try to stay away from—in no way overstates its quality.
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Three Times Three, and Three
Two splendid recordings, one from bass clarinetist Todd Marcus’s nonet and the other from cornetist Kirk Knuffke’s new trio, each bring to life the expressive intelligence of both the leaders and their colleagues.
R.I.P., Ron Miles
My heart broke today when I learned of the passing of trumpeter and composer Ron Miles, one of the great souls of American jazz and one of the sweetest personalities you might ever encounter.
I cannot remember when I first heard him, but I know it was ear opening.
What I do remember is the purity of his sound, and the deep well from which it came. Tender and firm, sweet and strong, and always looking for the light. Like his frequent collaborator guitarist Bill Frisell, he made everything sound better.
I highly recommend his album I Am a Man (reviewed here), and just about everything else he ever recorded.
The following track comes from the album Bardo Tank, which I stumbled on today for the first time and which seems eminently suitable today.
Thank you, Ron. Requiescet in pace.
© 2022 Mel Minter
Marta Sanchez Offers a Musical Portrait of Her Inner Landscape
Pianist/composer Marta Sanchez turned pandemic lockdowns into deep self-encounters whose complex, emotional, and bittersweet reckonings she offers up in her latest release, SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum).
Lindal and Dzurinko Present the Romantic/Modern Music of Sofia G.
In the pamphlet that accompanies the album The Hidden Music of Sofia G., from violinist Eva Lindal and pianist Virg Dzurinko, the account of the unusual provenance of this remarkable music begins like a short story from Thomas Mann: “In 2021, by sheer chance, Eva stumbled across two hand-written music scores for violin and piano hidden in an old violin case. Signed ‘Sofia G. 1935,’ the manuscripts included some unusual graphic symbols interspersed among conventional notation. The violin case also contained a leather identification tag that read ‘Sofia Ganeshian, Locarno, Switzerland.’” So began a multiyear project to fill out the biographical details of this previously unknown avant-garde composer and discover what other music of hers might be in hiding. The result is an album of mesmerizing music as soulful, fluid, and free as any you are likely to encounter.
