Avishai Cohen's Big Rain

Avishai Cohen's "After the Big Rain," which prominently featured keyboardist Jason Lindner and guitarist Lionel Loueke, was one of the best albums of 2007; the only problem brought up by the glossies, if it could be called a problem, was that the album sounded more like a Lionel Loueke record than an Avishai Cohen record. Cohen, who has probably had to spend his entire life contending with people asking "Avishai Cohen, you mean like the bass player," was probably miffed at these reviews. "Flood," the second part in his "Big Rain" trilogy, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the vision behind these albums is his and his alone.

Lindner and Loueke are both gone, and while their playing was part of what made "After the Big Rain" such a rich album they are not missed here. Cohen opted for a bass-less trio, and the only hold-over from "After the Big Rain" is drummer Daniel Freedman (the other member of the trio is pianist Yonatan Avishai, who together with Freedman and Cohen make up 3/4s of Third World Love). There are obvious differences between the two albums: "After the Big Rain" featured cutting edge electronics while "Flood" is all acoustic; "After the Big Rain" featured vocals on many tracks courtesy of Loueke. The differences are all surface though- Cohen's vision for the two albums is in many ways identical. Motifs from "Big Rain" resurface on "Flood," and his playing on the new album is related if not identical to his playing on "After the Big Rain."

Musically, "Flood" is exactly like it's title. The sounds- initial drips of Avishai's piano which lead to waves of Freedman's percussion and finally violent cascades of Cohen's trumpet- evoke quite literally the sounds of a flood. In a sense, "Flood" is a more unified album musically than "After the Big Rain," as the band has a tendency to act more like a single musician than on the previous album; on "Big Rain" there was usually a clear soloist, and while the band was interactive, it was easy to tell whose turn it was. On "Flood," however, the players weave in and out organically, for the service of the music and the concept. Highly recommended.

I'm curious to hear Cohen's next record, which according to his website will be the first part of this trilogy ("Before the Flood?" "Before the Big Rain?" "Clouds?"), and will be a big band date. After "After the Big Rain," an odd instrumentation combo record, and "Flood," a bass-less trio record, it will be interesting to hear how Cohen's concept fits into a large ensemble.

Jazz 08 Part One: This Year in Jazz!

I'm just going to come out and say it- disagree if you want, but this is an honest belief of mine- 2008 has been the best year for new jazz in a long, long time. Everything seemed to come together in 2008; 90 year olds released some of the best albums of their careers (Marian McPartland and Buddy DeFranco) and other well-established artists made some major leaps (Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Brad Mehldau). Most of the best records came from artists on the periphery of the jazz establishment, either too weird or too young: artists like Vijay Iyer, his cohort Rudresh Mahanthappa, Esperanza Spalding, Jenny Scheinman, Mathias Eick... the list goes on and on.

Even the disappointments weren't that bad (of course there are exceptions; the Wynton and Willie record was deathly boring, and Dianne Reeves' latest was unlistenable); when Ambrose Akinmusire's "Prelude to Cora" can be put on any kind of list of disappointments you know it was a good year. Perhaps the most surprising moments of the year came with the announcement of the year's MacArthur Fellowships (in a bad way) and Monk Institute Competition winners (in a surprising and sorta good way).

Of course the jazz media fixated on the same boring old people it always does (Sonny Rollins is, for probably the fortieth year in a row, the tenor saxophonist of the year according to Downbeat critics in spite of the fact that he doesn't perform regularly and didn't release an album this year) as opposed to focusing on the cool old people it tends to ignore (McPartland and DeFranco spring to mind- and I'm convinced that the only way Lee Konitz can get into the Downbeat Hall of Fame at this point is by dying).

The music this year speaks for itself, however. Rural Jazz has hit its peak with records like "History Mystery" and "Crossing the Field," and the Jewish Jazz scene only gets better with every barely-heard Tzadik release by somebody like Daniel Zamir or Paul Shapiro. And of course there's Esperanza, the girl of the moment, who deserves to be the next Norah Jones (perhaps the only Norah Jones). Young Ms. Spalding came out of nowhere (well, I'd heard of her, but I also go to Berklee), was suddenly featured on the cover of every jazz magazine and played on Letterman and Kimmel over the course of a week, not to mention her emergence as one of the go-to bassists of the Monk generation.

All in all, a stellar year. Next time on the Jazz Monster I'll have part two of my Jazz 08 series: The Superlatives, all leading up to the final edition of the Jazz 08, my top ten. So tune in a few days, because there's more to come.

The Altered State of Myriam

Don't let the top credit on Myriam Alter's new "Where Is There" confuse you, although Myriam Alter is a piano player (and apparently a "fine" one, accorded to a few critics; I have never heard her other records), she does not play anything on the album. Instead, she composes the eight original tunes. The arrangement- the person with the lead credit composes and conducts, but does not play- is reminiscent of John Zorn's Bar Kokhba Sextet, which is fitting; bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Joey Baron, both long-time Zorn associates, are featured on this record. Salvatore Bonafede plays piano on this date, and as such is somewhat liker her alter (get it?)-ego.

All in all, the playing is pretty good. The last few tracks are more interesting in that they have more room for some free improvisation from the group, which also includes clarinetist John Ruocco, cellist Jacque Morelenbaum and pyrotechnical soprano saxophonist Pierre Vaiana, whose playing here recalls that of Daniel Zamir. Vaiana has very few showcases on the album (with such a big cast of players, individual solos are relatively sparse), but when he does solo, as on "I'm Telling You," he commands attention like no one else playing on the album.

But, of course, that's not the point; it is Myriam Alter's album, and it feels that way. Alter's compositions, and not the player's solos, are the backbone of the record. Like Zamir and Zorn, Alter is influenced by traditional Jewish music, but the more fitting comparison- and the one I've heard most from other critics- is to young clarinetist Anat Cohen. Like Cohen, Alter is more interested in created complex colours with her band's oddly voiced instrumentation as opposed to writing heads for the various musicians to solo over. This doesn't always work, of course- "September 11th" (can you guess what that one's supposed to evoke?) is a somewhat sludge-y dirge, and "Come With Me" drags on a bit too long. For the most part though, the compositions are interesting, and even occasionally beautiful, as in the tango sounding "Still in Love." Recommended to those who are intrigued by the description; it isn't your average jazz record.

Radical Klezmer: New CDs from Paul Shapiro and Klez-Edge

I can understand how to many of you the title of this post, "Radical Klezmer," could sound like some kind of sarcastic joke. It isn't. Based on two new releases from John Zorn's Tzadik imprint, klezmer is not only alive and kicking, but undergoing a sort of creative resurgence not seen since Don Byron unearthed the music of Mickey Katz almost twenty years ago. Of the two CDs out this month, Paul Shapiro's "Essen" is more fun, while Klez-Edge's "Ancestors, Mindreles, Nagila Monsters" is more experimental and contains more variation. This is to be expected, of course, as Klez-Edge's leader, Burton Greene, was a figure in the early 60s New York free jazz scene, and recorded for ESP; others spotted on that label at the time included Albert Ayler and Marion Brown. His new project, like Shapiro's "Ribs and Brisket Revue," is not interested in creating free jazz so much as applying some of the concepts of free jazz to Klezmer music.

"Ancestors, Mindreles, Nagila Monsters" is successful because of it's variation. In addition to up-tempo numbers like the opener "Mindrele," there are slow tunes such as "Ancestral Folk Song." Greene, the band's leader and pianist, is an extremely capable composer of both classical and jazz music, and as such, his compositions never sound as if they've gone completely off the rails; that said, however, he has done an extremely good job of taking a free-jazz aesthetic and applying it to Klezmer. Take the extended, blues-soaked beginning of "Moldavian Blues," which contains some great free blowing from singer Marek Balata, clarinetist Perry Robinson and tuba player Larry Fishkind. In a later section, the tune takes on an air of controlled chaos, and the three improvise on an extended melodic line New Orleans-style. Klez-Edge is no Masada- don't get me wrong. Klez Edge is as different from Masada as Greene's other work is from John Zorn's; and any comparison of a group that makes free-Jewish-jazz to Zorn's Masada is bound to come up unfavorable, no matter how good it is. But in spite of that, this is recommended.

Paul Shapiro's new "Essen," with his Ribs and Brisket Revue, does not strive for anything as interesting as Klez Edge's "Ancestors, Mindreles, Nagila Monsters," but that doesn't take away from its inherent fun. A series of (mostly) covers of old Jewish novelty tunes, many of which are about food (titles include "Matzoh Balls" and "Dunkin' Bagel"), "Essen" is clearly light fare. The opener and title track, about a man who desperately wants to sit around and eat, is all over the place; depending on the section, the song is either full-on klezmer, reggae, or some kind of genre that I can only describe as "School-House Rock." The album's other major highlight is "Dunkin' Bagel," which gives Shapiro to show off his formidable talent on the tenor saxophone. The album's major flaw, as you would probably expect, is that you can only listen to so many old Jewish novelty songs about food, and eventually they all begin to sound the same. The choruses of half of the songs involve Matzoh Balls, and a little bit of lyrical variation (or a little bit more of Shapiro's or guest trumpet Steven Bernstein's playing) would have made the album considerably better. That said, it's fun.

Next time you can expect a review of something or other, I promise it will be good. I'm sorry for the long wait between posts, but I am now writing a column for the Scarsdale Inquirer and happened to be in DC over the weekend. That said, though, you can expect a new review sometime in the next few days.

Leftovers: Contemporary Reissue Edition

When I say "contemporary," I'm neither talking about the jazz record label, Contemporary, nor making a sarcastic reference to the fact that nothing truly contemporary could be reissued; both of the reissues that I'm going to review hear were initially released in roughly the last ten years, so they can tell us a lot about the contemporary jazz scene. Avishai Cohen, the bass player, is sort of like the John the Baptist to Anat Cohen's (no relation) Christ figure in the Israeli jazz scene. After playing with Chick Corea for a while, Avishai Cohen struck out on his own with a record, "Adama," that lightly fused middle-eastern musical ideas with jazz. Granted, it was nothing nearly as bombastic as what John Zorn had been doing with Masada for years already, but the fact that it was a real, live Israeli who had played with Chick Corea who was doing it meant something. The other reissue, Mark Feldman's "Music For Violin Alone," has nothing in common with Cohen's straight-ahead Israeli music. In spite of Feldman's credentials as a founding member of John Zorn's Masada String Trio, "Music For Violin Alone" has most in common with 20th century avant garde music for violin.

"Adama," Avishai Cohen's first album and the harbinger of Israeli dominance in the jazz world in recent years, has worn extremely well. Yes, in recent years people have found newer and arguably more innovative ways of working middle eastern influence into jazz. Yes, Omer Avital is now the go-to bass player for all of the Israelis in New York. No, none of the other players on "Adama" are major players in the Israeli jazz scene in Brooklyn. Who cares? With Steve Wilson on soprano, Jeff Ballard on drums, and either Brad Mehldau or Chick Corea on piano, there is no possible way to go wrong, and everybody plays up to their talent. Cohen himself shines on the funky "Bass Suite #s 1 & 2." Sparks also fly on "Gadu," in which Mehldau and Corea are given a chance to trade off, with Corea on electric keyboards and Mehldau on piano. Recommended.

Mark Feldman's "Music For Violin Alone" is easily one of the most jarring recordings I've heard recently. Falling somewhere between Jenny Scheinman's most avant garde early work and the experimental classical music of composers like George Crumb, Feldman does his best to create music that cannot be ignored. Feldman has played on hundreds of recordings a studio musician, for artists as varied as Zorn and Johnny Cash, but this music is a far cry from virtually anything else he's done as a sideman. Front and center, Feldman's music runs a gamut from the screaming, abrasive noise of "Etude" to the angry motivic rhythms of "Jete" to the pensive, quiet, middle-eastern flavored "Calista-" and that's only over the course of three tracks. "Music For Violin Alone" manages to be all over the place musically while being unmistakable as a work by Feldman. I add this caveat to my reviews of a lot of albums, but "Music For Violin Alone" is not for everyone. It's a far cry from straight ahead jazz, and for some people parts of it could sound like a guy trying to make weird noises with his violin. But, that said, this album is recommended for those with open ears.

Next time I'll have reviews of Nicole Mitchell's latest albums, "Black Unstoppable" and "Xenogenesis Suite."

Don't Mess With the Zamir

I think that listening to new albums by artists who I've never heard of is one of my favorite things to do as a critic; counter-intuitively, I find that I actually wind up having much odder and specific expectations of what their albums will sound like than when I listen to albums by artists whose work I know well. Take Daniel Zamir, for example. I found out about his new album by looking at the Tzadik website (John Zorn's Tzadik label is probably my favorite indie other than Pi, although a lot of their releases are contemporary classical) and finding that the rhythm section was made up of some of my favorite downtown players: Joey Baron, Uri Caine, and Greg Cohen. I found the album online, but before listening to it I figured I may as well check out Zamir's myspace for any clues as to who he is; it turns out that Zamir is an Israeli orthodox Jew, and that his biggest influence (as a musician) is "Torah." And to top it off, the songs had titles like "You Are my G-D" and "Let Me In Under Your Wing." "Ugh," I said, "not another Jewish 'A Love Supreme'," and put off listening to the album so I could sit around and (happily) hear Esperanza Spalding complain about her love life for the fiftieth time.

I couldn't have been more wrong about "I Believe," Daniel Zamir's new album. As opposed to being "Another Jewish 'A Love Supreme'," it's a funky Jewish "Tales From the Hudson;" an accessible Mike Brecker record by a hacidic, soprano saxophone wielding technical monster. The second track, "Poem 51/52," exemplifies the aesthetic of the album perfectly. After a funky, straight-ahead head with a dash of klezmer, Zamir plays a passionate, note-intensive solo that manages to sound killin' in spite of it's wearing technique on it's sleeve. Uri Caine follows with a piano solo that sounds like it could tear the heavens apart; as straight as Caine ever plays with anybody, this solo shows off his chops in a modernist jazz setting as well as anything he's played with Dave Douglas. Greg Cohen also takes a melodic solo, and Joey Baron anchors the proceedings with the off-kilter charm you would expect from his playing with John Zorn and Bill Frisell over the past twenty years.

Other highlights on the album include the aforementioned "Let Me Under Your Wing," which gives Zamir a chance to show off his saxophone pyrotechnics in a three minute solo without accompaniment, and the opener, "7 Midot," which introduces Zamir's intentions on the album with a bang. The only major flaw with the album as a whole is the fact that occasionally the songs blend together; I can't remember the difference between "Poem 54 (770)" and "Poem 10," and a lot of the ideas in Zamir's various solos tend to cross over due to a tendency to put everything he knows into each improvisation. While the former is a problem for the album, you hardly notice the latter due to Zamir's ability to drum up (divine?) excitement during his solos.

On a whole, "I Believe" is a very good album, and showcases Daniel Zamir as a major talent, and one of the leading voices in what I like to call the "Jewish Jazz" movement. He has yet to deliver an album as brilliant as Avishai Cohen's "After the Big Rain" or Anat Cohen's "Poetica," and his compositions and performances aren't quite as mind-blowing as those of Masada or the Bar Kokhba Sextet (both run by John Zorn, his mentor), but "I Believe" is still an extremely promising showcase for Zamir's work. Recommended.

Next time I'm tempted to have a review of Girl Talk's "Feed the Animals," mostly because I can't stop listening to it and attempting to pick out samples... I know, I know, it isn't jazz by any stretch of the imagination, but who cares? Music is music... On the other hand, I could review a concert by Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman, and Brad Jones. Check back next time!

Zydeco Clowns and Israeli Ex-Patriates

John Ellis and Third World Love have virtually nothing in common in terms of music, although if you wanted to play six degrees of separation they have both played with Mike Moreno at some point in their careers (John Ellis on Moreno's most recent album; Avishai Cohen with Moreno on Yosvany Terry's "Metamorphosis"). Granted, that sort of random ephemera doesn't really help anyone, or tell anyone what either group sounds like, but it's illustrative of how small the jazz world is during the Monk generation (neither Ellis nor the members of Third World Love went to the Monk Institute, but they've both played with people who have, and Cohen was a finalist in the Monk Institute's trumpet competition in the late 90s). Either way, while the aesthetics of "New Blues" and "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow" are totally different, they're both extremely interesting and worth listening to.

One track, titled "Zydeco Clowns on the Lawn," neatly summarizes the entirety of John Ellis' "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow." After opening up with squeals and other various clown noises, the track moves into a groove partly anchored by Gary Versace's organ, but also partly anchored by what any sane person initially thinks is a bass. A few seconds later, when it becomes clear that this funky music is actually being bottomed out by Matt Perrine's sousaphone (If you only click one link, click that one, Perrine's version of "The Washington Post March" is brilliant), it comes into focus that perhaps this is not music for sane people. This is not a problem, as far as I'm concerned; a surplus of good music isn't necessarily made for (or by, for that matter) people with good heads on their shoulders, and this music is too fun to ignore just because it's a little zany. There's almost no point in going into specific tracks, because somehow Ellis manages to give them perfect descriptions in their titles (even, somehow, when a track is called "Tattooed Teen Waltzes With Grandma"). This album is well worth a listen, maybe the jazz summer-party-record of 2008.

Third World Love, Avishai Cohen's band with Israeli partners-in-crime Yonatan Avishai (piano), Omer Avital (bass), and Daniel Freedman (drums), has the most in common with John Ellis on the title track of their "New Blues;" a mixture of middle eastern flavor and contemporary jazz harmony, but with a funky New Orleans beat, as well as an infectious melody, the track soars. And everything on the record is that good. While Avishai's sister, clarinet and saxophone player Anat, has been getting the most mention in the last two years ("New Blues" was released on her record label, Anzic) because of her constant stream of new music, Avishai deserves a lot more space in the trades. Last year he released "After the Big Rain," easily one of my favorite releases of 2007, and with "New Blues" he has staked a claim for Third World Love as one of the top young bands in jazz.

I don't know what I'll have next time to be honest (I'm living moment to moment with this blog), but expect something here on Tuesday. Maybe I'll do my "Top Five Tunes of the Spring" a few days before I had initially planned if I can't find "Esperanza" anywhere.

John Zorn's Hat Trick

John Zorn sure isn't who he used to be; folks who know John Zorn from his "Big Gundown" days would be in for a shock at his recent output. As opposed to the schizophrenic channel surfing of "Naked City" or the angry bursts of noise characterized by "Spy Vs. Spy," John Zorn has taken his downtown credibility and used it to create a forum for new music inspired by old Jewish sounds. As opposed to consolidating his (well-earned) rep as a noise-maker, Zorn barely plays saxophone these days; he's much more interested in writing music for his many performing ensembles and in using his venue, The Stone, as a veritable land of milk and honey for the downtown scene. One can't criticize him for the volume of his output though; he's released three (!) albums so far this year, not including his one-off collaboration with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson.

The best of these three albums is "The Dreamers," by Zorn's electric Masada band, and it is also the only one to actually feature Zorn's saxophone playing. While it takes its time to unfold (the first track to really gel is the fourth track, "Anulikwutsayl," which prominently features Marc Ribot's guitar), when it finally does it never lets up. Marc Ribot and Jamie Saft (keyboard) manage to create a sort of Jewish-music-meets-surf-rock-meets-avant-garde vibe which sounds odd on paper but works brilliantly on record. Zorn himself burns on "Toys," a kitschy, nearly free-improvisatory exploration of a variety of sounds and styles too numerous to name here. Highly recommended.

"Lucifer," the tenth installment of original compositions from Zorn's recent "Book of Angels" (the sequel to his "Book of Masada"), is played by the Bar Kokhba Sextet, which also features Ribot and percussionist Cyro Baptista. The album isn't nearly as out there as "The Dreamers," and has more in common with chamber music than jazz. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, the group doesn't move the idiom into new areas like it did on its installment of Zorn's "Fiftieth Birthday Celebration" series, and the album suffers because at time it seems boring. That said, Zorn's compositions are good, if not as stellar as those from his Book of Masada and so I'd give this album a tepid recommendation; if you love Zorn's current work, its still worth picking up.

Zorn's new edition of his "Filmworks" series, "Vol. 19: The Rain Horse," features Greg Cohen on bass, Mark Feldman on violin and Rob Burger on piano. The music is absolutely sublime; instead being all over the place as on "The Dreamers," Zorn's compositions here are beautiful in a quiet, understated way. Its not jazz in any sense of the word, but being that Zorn released so many albums I figured it was worth listening to, and I'm glad that I did. This one is definitely recommended for anyone who would like to hear a different side of Zorn, or for anyone who wants a way into his more recent classical work.

Next time I think I'll have a review of Matana Roberts' "Chicago Project," but that could change as a ton of albums were released today (including "History Mystery," by Bill Frisell, an old Zorn cohort).