Braxton Cook, “Not Everyone Can Go,” Not Everyone Can Go (Nettwerk)
Braxton Cook’s latest album, Not Everyone Can Go, came about after some serious soul searching. The multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer had been touring relentlessly, with stops in Europe and Asia and a couple of U.S. tours that took him away from his family. Realizing that the roles of husband and father were not compatible with traveling the globe, he decided to emphasize the former at the expense of the latter. This step wasn’t taken lightly, and he communicates conflicting emotions on Not Everyone Can Go. “There’s grief that comes along with having to let certain things go to make time for the things I truly value,” Cook says. The opening title track hints at the tensions that led to his slowing his roll. Against a bustling drum loop supplied by Corey Fonville, and an almost Ethio-jazz-sounding horn chorus, Cook’s alto sax reels like a pebble in the tide. Additional textures are provided by guitarist Andrew Renfroe and the track’s producer and arranger, Hendrik Valera; as throughout, the electronic palette enhances rather than subsumes Cook’s emotional expression. Clearly, Not Everyone Can Go falls into the realm of new jazz/R&B with some hints of jazz fusion. Cook recruited a number of musicians who are more than comfortable in this world, including vocalists NNAVY and Marie Dahlstrom, and the leader’s soulful singing is also prominently featured throughout the album.
Remy Le Boeuf and the Nordkraft Big Band with Danielle Wertz, “Rest Your Head,” Silent Course (Gateway Music)
With four Grammy nominations to his name, Remy Le Boeuf has garnered significant acclaim for his large ensemble work. Accordingly, the saxophonist and arranger, a Colorado resident, serves as chief conductor of the Denmark-based Nordkraft Big Band, with which he recently released a second recording, Silent Course. The album also features vocalist and songwriter Danielle Wertz, with whom Le Boeuf has some history: He played an album release show for the singer’s second album, 2023’s Other Side. Le Boeuf includes a couple of songs from Other Side on Silent Course, “Turn In” and “Rest Your Head.” “Those are two of the tunes that I especially loved,” he says. “They just wanted to be arranged — put on a larger canvas with added colors.” Accompanied by anxious piano and acoustic bass, Wertz’s lovely, breathy vocals introduce the somber theme of “Rest Your Head.” The full ensemble then sweeps in and lends grandeur to the proceedings, which somehow remain intimate, even as Wertz’s vocals intensify. Guitarist Martin Granum offers a quiet interlude with the rhythm section before ratcheting up his expression with some bluesy bends, and Le Boeuf’s alto engages in conversation with Wertz’s wordless vocals before she returns to the confessional lyric. The piece winds down as it began, with just piano and vocals. Weaving big band sections into this introspective tapestry without distorting or obscuring it, Le Boeuf once again proves his mastery.
JD Allen, “Don’t Go to Strangers,” Love Letters (The Ballad Sessions) (Savant)
Tenor saxophonist JD Allen has made a name for himself with edgy, often aggressive trio and small combo recordings. However, On Love Letters (The Ballad Sessions), Allen interprets some of the most beautiful entries in the Great American Songbook with deep feeling and respect for time-tested melodies. Not that this is an aberration, exactly — he explored standards on his 2018 release Love Stone — just an indication that the saxophonist is capable of relaxing and enjoying familiar terrain. Accompanied by pianist Brandon McCune, bassist Ian Kenselaar and drummer Nic Cacioppo, Allen plays straight and bluesy renditions of numbers that people have made love to for decades, nodding to vocalists such as Johnny Hartman (“You Are Too Beautiful”), Chet Baker (“I Get Along Without You Very Well”) and Frank Sinatra (“Where Are You?”). He also revisits the heartbreaker “Don’t Go to Strangers,” a hit for Etta Jones, with Frank Wess on tenor, from her 1960 album of the same name. McCune opens the tune with a lovely intro, then Allen immerses himself in the haunting, desperate plea for a faithless lover’s eventual return. McCune re-enters with a nimble, bluesy solo, and Kenselaar and Cacioppo — frequent Allen confederates — provide excellent rhythm and shading. “I don’t take for granted the desire to try and quantum jump into different sonic landscapes, as I have in previous recordings,” Allen writes in the album’s liners. “I like to think of it all as ONE, and I hope this recording finds us on common ground. I love love jazz, and I know for certain that you do, too.”
Gabriel Alegría Afro-Peruvian Sextet, “Luciérnagas/Fireflies,” El Muki (Saponegro)
After two decades living in the U.S., trumpeter and composer Gabriel Alegría returned to his native Lima, Peru, in 2023. The relocation helped him reconnect with his roots — not that he had strayed far from them as leader of the Afro-Peruvian Sextet, his band of the past 20 years. Nonetheless, the group’s most recent release, El Muki, takes a deep dive into the music and folklore of his homeland. The album’s title derives from tales of an elf-like creature who protects miners in the Peruvian mountains and who Alegria sees as a metaphor for musicians. “We embody El Muki, standing as the protectors of humanity against the designs of a technology-driven world,” he says. “Afro-Peruvian jazz safeguards the sacred exchange of true musical energy between cultures, an essence that can never be replicated by machine.” The same could be said of the magic and wonder of fireflies, which the sextet celebrates on the track “Luciérnagas.” Drummer Hugo Alcázar and bassist Mario Cuba open the track with shimmering cymbals and a slinky pizzicato bass line, while percussionist Freddy “Huevito” Lobatón fattens the groove, an Afro-Peruvian lando rhythm punctuated by hand claps and vocal shouts. A horn chorus supplied by Alegría and saxophonist Laura Andrea Leguía further enhances the soundscape, as do gorgeous solos from both players, as well as atmospheric guitar work provided by Jocho Velázquez. Rhythm and melody evoke the delightful image of a field of fireflies twinkling mysterious messages in a language all their own.
Joe Woodard, “Song With a View,” The Fine Art of Forgetting (Household Ink)
The byline “Josef Woodard” will be familiar to longtime JAZZIZ readers. Joe’s been a treasured contributor to the magazine for decades and continues to pen album reviews for our Auditions section. In addition to sharing his critical acumen and deep knowledge about jazz — he’s written books about Charles Lloyd and Charlie Haden — the Santa Barbara, California-based Woodard’s also an accomplished guitarist and composer. He released his first solo album, 2022’s Wedding Album (On This Day), which celebrated the marriage of his daughter, Claire, to her now-husband, John, and follows it up with The Fine Art of Forgetting, another set of self-penned solo pieces for guitar. In his typically deft way with words, Woodard describes the album as “a collection of compact guitar pieces both vintage and freshly cooked, connected by a loosely spun theme of inspirations drawn from dreams and memoryscapes.” However, the quietly effervescent “Song With a View” was developed more consciously, inspired by the view from Claire and John’s back patio in Pescadero, with mountains and ocean providing a beauteous backdrop. Woodard articulates emotions beyond words with his impassioned finger-picking, as he impressionistically limns the landscape and the feelings it conjured within him.
Hiroko Mina, “Wings of Celestial Maiden,” Beyond the Silk Road (Mandacaru)
The Silk Road provides an apt metaphor for Japanese pianist and composer Hiroko Mina’s latest recording. A series of trade routes, the Silk Road connected the Far East with Europe and the Middle East for more than a millennium, exposing populations to items and ideas that transcended the borders of their own cloistered worlds. Hiroko’s music also blends Eastern and Western traditions and sensibilities, combining Japanese cultural concepts with Western classical music and jazz. That synthesis is immediately obvious on her latest recording, Beyond the Silk Road. Opening track “Wings of Celestial Maiden” offers a startling collage, featuring legendary jazz bassist Ron Carter, whose arco playing is masterful, and percussionist Nanny Assis dialoguing and overlapping with Hiroko’s understated piano and the subtle sounds of synthesizer artist Hideki Tsusumi. Ghostly vocals provided by Mamiko Uchiwa incorporate the tradition of ancient Japanese Noh theater to dramatic effect, while the soothing sounds of the ocean open and close the piece, providing a sense of eternal continuity. Hiroko, who trained at universities and conservatories from Vienna to Moscow, reveals her classical foundations throughout the album, and her playing is quite expressive and moving.
Jason Kao Hwang, “Landmarks Vanish,” Myths of Origin (True Sound)
On the heels of his lauded 2024 solo-violin project Soliloquies, Jason Kao Hwang releases Myths of Origin (True Sound), an album that puts him at the helm of a 24-piece orchestra. Like its predecessor, the album seems quite personal and leaves plenty of room for improvisation. Recorded at New York’s 2022 Vision Festival, at the venue Roulette, the music was intended by the composer and conductor to be listened to “in one continuous flow.” However, the album comprises individual tracks for listeners’ convenience, and Hwang also points out that the track titles can be read, vertically, as a poem. The leader doesn’t put bow or fingers to an instrument here, but rather directs the ensemble of violins, violas, cellos and guitars, which is anchored by bassist Ken Filano and drummer Andrew Drury. Balancing improvisation with notation, Hwang developed “a lexicon of gestures” that he employed to cue the various sections and to spur spontaneous musical invention in relation to his score. That intoxicating methodology can be heard on the ominous “Landmarks Vanish,” which features the full complement of knife-edged strings and doomy kettle drums as well as a pungent solo guitar section. Reacting to the racism that emerged toward Asian Americans during the pandemic, Hwang says his imperative for the work was to “[defy] mainstream society’s enduring fetish for Orientalist fantasies, a history woven inextricably into unconscious biases” that fueled violence and hatred.
Antonio Adolfo, “Vassourhinas,” Carnaval (The Songs Were So Beautiful) (AAM Music)
Pianist and composer Antonio Adolfo continues his life-long love affair with the music of his native Brazil, exploring melodies, rhythms and roots that extend far beyond the bossa nova. On the self-explanatory Carnaval (The Songs Were So Beautiful), Adolfo celebrates music associated with Carnaval, diving deep into the colorful history of its rites and revels, characters and narratives. The pianist and his ensemble revive songs from the 1930s to the ’60s (and one from the ’80s), with verve and flair, bringing jazz sensibilities to music that both inspired and was inspired by jazz and reflecting a variety of regional styles. Written by Matias de Rocha and Joana Batista Ramos as an homage to a popular Carnaval club in the town of Recife, the lively “Vassourhinas,” actually dates back to 1909. Adolfo and his rhythm section of bassist Jorge Helder and drummer Rafael Barata introduce the theme and are quickly joined by the rest of the band, which boosts the tempo and brightens the mood with bright horn accents. Jubilation continues with effervescent solos from tenor saxophonist Marcelo Martins and guitarist Lula Galvão and sparkling accents from Adolfo that glint like the golden trim on a Carnaval costume.
Roberto Montero, “Chorando de Rir,” Todos Os Tempos (self-released)
On Todos Os Tempos, his debut release, guitarist and composer Roberto Montero spotlights the versatility promised by the album title, which translates from Portuguese as “All Tempos and All Times.” The multi-talented Montero, who switches between acoustic and electric guitars, wrote all the songs and performs them in various settings with various American and Brazilian artists. For “Chorando de Rir,” which translates to “Laughing ’Til It Hurts,” Montero duets with pianist Rique Pantoja, offering the mix of joie de vie and existential wistfulness that’s defined in Brazilian music as saudade. Montero’s pristine fingerpicking is as lovely as a breeze blowing through palm fronds, and Pantoja’s piano notes sparkle like moonlight on the waves. The pair trade leads and comp expertly behind one another, at one point shifting in tempo and feel for a brief dramatic interlude that adds another degree of complexity, before ending the piece as pretty as a sigh. Based in L.A., Montero has toured with Sergio Mendes, played and sung on soundtracks to animated fare such as Rio 2 and Mickey Mouse Goes to Carnaval and appeared with others on The Tonight Show and The Voice. His first solo recording, Todos Os Tempos shows great promise.
David Bailis, “Ordinary Trash,” Running Through My Mind (Create or Destroy)
In addition to working as a musician in clubs throughout New York, guitarist and composer David Bailis is a serious runner: He’s participated in marathons and triathlons, won awards and medals and worked as a coach. So the title of his fourth release, Running Through My Mind, carries a double meaning, referencing the musical ideas that race through his brain as well as his passion for lacing up his sneakers and hitting the asphalt, perhaps activities that are not mutually exclusive. While running is more of an individual sport, jazz generally thrives when teammates are involved, and Bailis recruited some ringers for his quintet, including alto saxophonist Caroline Davis, a leader in her own right. The group gets off to a rousing start with opening track “Ordinary Trash,” an intriguing melodic theme that moves along to a skittering, very modern-sounding drum pattern laid down by Kenneth Salters and an anchoring bass line provided by Jordan Scannella. Keyboardist Andrew Links unspools a burbling, futuristic solo that leads to Bailis’ own synthesized solo, and Davis bats clean-up with a brief sax spotlight. Bailis, a Berklee College of Music graduate living in Brooklyn, has worked in and out of jazz with funk and hip-hop projects, as well as with artists as diverse as Chris Speed and Philip Glass. He also maintains his “Tourganic” blog and podcast in which he discusses training and keeping a healthy lifestyle while on the road.
