If you are unfamiliar with vocalist Catherine Russell, do yourself a big favor and check out her latest release, Send for Me, available here. If you are familiar with her, you have probably stopped reading by now and are on your way to to pick up this stellar release, if you haven’t already.
The bio of bassist/composer Mike Rivard, the head elf of the band Club d’Elf, claims that he is “perhaps the only musician to have performed with big band legend Cab Calloway, Frank Zappa discovery Wildman Fisher, Gnawa master Hassan Hakmoun and two members of the Velvet Underground (though sadly, not all at the same time)” [my emphasis]. With Club d’Elf, though, Rivard performs with musicians from a similarly wide range of backgrounds—from traditional Moroccan music to ’60s rock, jazz to country to Hindustani music—all at the same time, playing originals, Gnawa and Sufi classics, and covers of folks such as Zappa and Zawinul/Davis. The result is transformational music that can lighten your load.
With a rhythm section of Kris Davis (piano), Dave Holland (bass), and Terri Lyne Carrington (drums), chances are good that the music will be satisfying. Top that off with the playing and composition skills of the two leaders of the In Common quintet, saxophonist Walter Smith III and guitarist Matthew Stevens, and you’ve got something a lot more than good.
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
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).