RYMDEN, Reflections and Odysseys, 2019

Expectations are potential disappointments. The higher you fly in advance, the deeper you fall if you cannot get what you were looking for. Yet, how can you tame your inner monsters if you hear about an album from the collaboration of Bugge Wesseltoft, Dan Berglund and Magnus Öström. I could not. A trio composed of top notch Scandinavian musicians with a lot of historical milestones in their own careers... Add a subliminal Esbjörn Svensson effect to your perceptions. How can you stop thinking about Esbjörn when you listen to Dan and Magnus, while they are connecting this world’s rhythm to the heaven’s riffs. I could not. It was very far away from being difficult to give up thinking about my all expectations when I started to listen to Rymden's first album. 

Reflections & Odysseys is one of the most exciting albums I have listened to in recent years. It was already clear from the first seconds of the intro-track Reflections that I am listening to something really new and fresh. The way how the mysterious feelings given by double-bass in Reflection is connected to Odysseys’s clear phrases is verifying one of the most important KPIs in a trio format: Organic sound. The Peacemaker is a double-bass solo - a peaceful island - between Odyssey and electrical keys dominated Pitter-Patter. With this electrical feeling merged with Scandinavian dignified wording, I am swinging between Jazz Pa Svenska and Bitches Brew back and forth. 

The Luguburious Youth of Lucky Luke and The Celestial Dog and the Funeral Ship are the melancholic centre points of the album, with all instruments are set to their minimal contribution mode. The middle part of the “LYOLL” where the bass leads the main theme in the best possible way, the following rise in the tension triggered by piano and the incredible drum performance underneath everything are all priceless. I felt speechless and could not help myself thinking about old E.S.T. days. The backbone of “CDATP” is funeral drums. Dry and arrogant... The bass softens it. With naive actions from the piano added on top, the drum-set decides to leave this feeling for a while, for an incredible end to the piece. Bergen is obviously from Norwegian part of the band. It is like mountains in Bergen; lively, peaceful and cold... With its catchy main theme lead successfully by Bugge and improvisational parts, this piece looks like the locomotive piece of the album. Rak-The Abyss carries very familiar patterns for the followers of Magnus Öström. He connects his amazing solo -reminding the great stuff from Leucocyte- to the introduction of Rak. Rak starts with some tense feelings with a progressive rock influence and switches back and forth between this and a more jazzy electrical texture. Orbiting sounds like the piano-riff introduction of last piece Homegrown. That last bit is a very good final. It shows us once more that the music we are exposed to are played by musicians, who are among the bests on this planet. Homegrown flows very naturally and as the title implies, the main theme carries very warm home-like feelings.

Overall, you can expect a lot from Reflections & Odysseys if you have not listened to it yet. We all can expect more from Rymden as one of the current best bands of Nordic Jazz.  

Jazzahead 2018!

Three years have been passed with the blink of an eye. I can still remember the “younger” passionate man entering to Messe Bremen for the first time in 2015. Jazzahead was a mysterious event for me at that time. It was both like a professional meeting hub for stakeholders in jazz department of music industry and a jazz festival for those who are interested in rising stars in Europe. It was one of a kind event and to be very honest, my profile was not that much common either. I was just a freelance blogger trying to decide on what I can do to support jazz business and could manage to meet a lot of professionals from various sides, which made me return to my home with satisfactory answers.

During this long blink of an eye, actually, things have been changed a lot for me. I needed to focus on my engineering career and had to decide on where to live for the rest of my life. With the help of familiarity I gained during my jazz trips to Rotterdam for North Sea Jazz Festival, the expat city of these cute country became my new home. I moved to Eindhoven with my family in the beginning of 2017. Although these two years between 2015 and 2017 were musically too silent for me mostly because of the time I invested in my professional life and my new born baby girl Melody, this new location made it easier for me to reach at jazz events with short driving distances and triggered me to create a more international jazz circle around me. The blogger became an insider for European jazz from then on, instead of the direct and stubborn Turkish reviewer of the foreign scenes.

By means of all these experiences, the ideas are settled, the pink glasses coming from enthusiasm are taken off and a more objective point of view has been gained before jazzahead! 2018 opened its doors for the fair on April 19^th. Thus I found myself once more in Bremen with no flying wings or a solid purpose this time. The only thing I was looking for may be a new excitement for a fresh feeling for jazz or any new idea that can push me to do something about this music. I believe that I came back to my home with some ideas that I should work on to decide what can be done better to keep communication channel in networking between jazz professionals more efficient and reliable.

This year was Polish year of jazzahead with the motto “We’re from Poland” and I really liked their performances in the first day. Marcin Wasilewski Trio was -not surprisingly- very good, playing a short set started with their nice album Spark of Life. Joanna Duda Trio was a new name for me and I really liked the new innovative approach there, creating an energetic and full-of-tension music. Atom String Quartet was a band that I have been trying to catch somewhere for a while and to be honest the performance was among best showcases there at jazzahead. 

The second day started very powerfully with the unique Greek influenced - a little bit oriental - Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet and the successful performance dominated by an amazing lyra sound swirling around groovy improvisations, gave an idea why ECM released their album in 2018. Emilia Martensson was like a silky vocal touch in between challenging trials of other showcases. Einar Scheving Quartet was as Icelandic as possible with the dignified and catchy compositions. Oskar Gudjonsson from ADHD was detected immediately with his unique touch on sax. Horse Orchestra were the crazy guys of the event and their performance proved that they are not just made of their weird images but really good at what they are playing. Adam Baldych and Helge Lien Trio was top notch as expected from my side and it looks like as time passed the band started to create a real organic collaboration also thanks to two albums now released from ACT.  

German jazz expo started with en excitement on Simon Nabatov with Fearless Trio but it was a deep disappointment that I could not listen to him since he has been replaced by another pianist. Daniel Erdmann's Velvet Revolution was very promising with their album which is awarded by German Critics choice of the year and their performance was aligned with what is expected. Markus Stockhausen's Quadrivium was again presenting state-of-art contemporary jazz music. Among the overseas night performers, Petros Klampanis Group was interestingly familiar with an oriental touch on double bass supported by string accompaniment and jazzy compositions. Gregory Privat Trio added interesting compositions on an ordinary piano trio configuration and Martinique roots of the pianist gave the unique pattern in their jazz interpretation.

Frankly, the line up for showcases and jazzclub night was not that much impressive in general. ECM was presenting their new releases with some performances but there wasn’t an individual ECM night. ACT was there with management and they were presenting some musicians with some showcases but the dominance of the label was not that much visible as it was before.  The performance halls in Messe was spacious and comfortable. Although I found the near field listening experience satisfactory I have heard several remarks from the audience considering poor sound quality especially at the back side. Kulturzentrum Schlachthof was better equipped also with an outdoor stage supported by live stream on a big screen. The showcases were 45 minutes only for overseas night. The rest was just half an hour which - I suppose - makes it a little bit stressful for musicians to present themselves in a way that they feel satisfied.

The meetings were focused and qualitatively presented with good equipment. Professionals look really like too busy with their meetings and the way the stands and all the other locations are designed and built were more structured than what I saw three years ago. I have heard from some of my manager friends that they could not see real decision makers and leaders of European jazz around. Jazzahead is a very necessary and to the point event considering the mission it carries on. However this does not mean that it is sufficient to help all the new jazz professionals who have dived into a really tough business of making themselves visible and audible. It is obvious that sharing what is gained is not enough in this cruel finance-based era. Something needs to be done to attract money from other parties towards the jazz industry. Somethings need to be done to gain the attraction of music listeners to pay money for good music and this money spent should be directly reachable by real labour owners. In other words, trade fair in jazz should be applied by its real meaning instead of keeping it as a hype motto.    

10 Best Jazz Albums of 2017

1. Blue Maqams - Anouar Brahem, ECM

2. Cirklar - Tingvall Trio, Skip Records

3. Jersey - Mark Guiliana JazzQuartet, Motema

4. Provanance - Bjorn Meyer, ECM

5. Danse - Colin Vallon Trio, ECM

6. 6 - ADHD

7. She Moves On - Youn Sun Nah, ACT

8. Cross My Palm with Silver - Avishai Cohen, ECM

9. An Ancient Observer - Tigran Hamasyan, Nonesuch Records

10. Guzuguzu - Helge Lien Trio, Ozella

ECM Online?

I have heard that ECM is online. Though, the first thing I did after this news is to pull another ECM album from the shelf and I immediately went back to some weeks ago when Bobo Stenson Trio played in Rotterdam. I still remember that moment... It was around the first 30 minutes I guess, right after another amazing piece and Anders Jormin opened his eyes with a deep look over the audience in dark, asking "any questions?" He was really like one of my professors at the university - you know also the hair style etc... Bobo, for instance, was like the modest instructor at physics course, whereas Anders was the smart-stubborn high voltage guy. I mean, that's what they are doing for a living. That's what they have been educated for. That's what they have invested in. That's what they are challenged for. That's what they struggled to create the best out of it. That's what they have done for a long time not only for joy and satisfying their inspired souls but also for a well-deserved decent life. Musicians play music for several reasons and earning their life is one of them. Earning life is essential and the best way to do that is to do what you can do and sell well. I care about musicians who play the music I like listening to. So I keep on pulling albums from the shelf... 

So What's Next? 3-5 November 2017, Eindhoven

I feel honored to be able to write about a jazz festival from the city that I currently live in. So What's Next is the young festival - 5 years old - of southern Netherlands and having North Sea Jazz organization behind the production, it looks like it is really aiming to be a prominent jazz festival of the country. This year Eindhoven had chosen to allocate first weekend of November. I could only join the Saturday and Sunday part but there was also an opening night on Friday with the name Kovacs Curates. The center of gravity for the festival was on Saturday with so many impressive names such as Jacob Collier, Kamasi Washington, Donny McCaslin, Avishai Cohen (trumpet), Mark Guiliana, Ambrose Akinmusire, Steve Lehman, Shabaka & Ancestor... The festival was basically using Muziekgebouw Eindhoven as the headquarter and all the concerts in Saturday had been performed in 6 stages (2 concert halls, 1 jazz club and 3 stages) in this important music place of Eindhoven. 

For me, the best performance of the festival was from Mark Guiliana Quartet with Shai Maestro on piano, Chris Morrisey on bass and Shabaka Hutchings on saxophone. Especially the first trio part of this performance was one of the best I have seen recently. I have listened to these musicians with different settings several times earlier but the organic vibes that the trio reached at that day was really something special. I am totally impressed by Shai Maestro's solo and Mark Guiliana's precise timings and groovy hits on really nice compositions. Shabaka's soft touch - which is not like I got used to from his ancestor project - to the trio was a nice accompaniment to the organic sound of the band. Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet with Justin Brown on drums and Avishai Cohen Quartet were other impressive performances on Saturday night.

Sunday was basically a down-town festival where mostly young and new musicians were performing in several stages around the city. Aruán Ortiz Solo performance in the stage Meneer Frits and Motion Complex Trio in Fifth NRE were among the prominent performances.



I am really looking forward to seeing the next year's line up of this modest but amazing jazz festival for which I just need to bike some kilometers.   

My Schedule for North Sea Jazz 2017 - A Crazy Friday, A Calm Saturday and A Hectic Sunday

It's time! North Sea Jazz Festival 2017 is loading! The great and unique jazz festival of Netherlands will be held between July 7th and July 9th this year. This will be my third time in Ahoy, Rotterdam and I decided to share my draft schedule in advance as a pre-guide to my followers. Please click on each picture to see the complete program as well as my selections with coloured circles ranging from red (do not miss) to pink (have a look). You can find my general review for 2013 here, which also includes some advice and tips: http://fatih-erkan.blogspot.nl/2013/08/north-sea-jazz-festival-2013-visitors.html. Please do not hesitate to add any of your advice in the comments...

Jazz in Duketown 2-5 June 2017 and Joshua Redman Trio

In my opinion, jazz, both as a genre and a style to perform music, can easily be described as some abstracted outputs of complex sensations and feelings. Celebration should be allocating one of the largest portions there and the performance from Joshua Redman Trio in the festival Jazz in Duketown, here in Den Bosch, showed me one more time that how important this celebration feeling is both for jazz and life in general. For my first time in Jazz in Duketown, my overall evaluation for the festival would be the Dutch word "gezellig", which seems to have a meaning in between cozy and within-family-and-close-friends. Although the festival is known to be an entertainment-fair like event in past mostly with its outdoor style, line-up-wise it is said to be changing roles with its counterpart in Breda, which is another long standing Dutch jazz festival close by. Amongst, Al Di Meola, Ben Williams, Marcus Strickland, Mark Turner, Sons of Kemet, Jasper Hoiby, China Moses, Lucy Woodward and Dinosaur caught my attention immediately on checking the four days festival ending on the national holiday Monday June 5th. The organization has been changing the ambience of the great city Den Bosch entirely into an impressive jazz celebration fair by spreading the stages to almost all main streets and squares of the city for many years.  

Coming back to the Joshua Redman Trio, the musicians managed to captivate the audience starting from the first note and move just like three heavy-weight boxing champions in the ring. Despite the very informal and outdoor ambience in Den Bosch, the saxophonist Joshua Redman, the bassist Reuben Rogers and the drummer Gregory Hutchinson could easily lock all the attentions of concerned listeners to the tunes, which are selected mostly from unique arrangements of jazz standards and/or catchy compositions of Joshua as well as other jazz giants. A very interesting version of one of my all-time favorite tunes Mack The Knife became the first piece of the performance and getting Joshua's nice piece Second Date as the following one was something that makes me happier in my almost forefront seat in the middle of spacious Markt square. Blackwell's Message from Joe Lovano, Limehouse Blues from Django Reinhardt and many others had filled our ears and fed our souls especially thanks to Joshua Redman's really impressive full breath tone and Gregory Hutchinson's endless energy on beating the drum-set.

She Moves On! Youn Sun Nah and New Yorkers...

Things can change in time. It seems that especially this century -not new anymore- is somehow gifted -or cursed from the other way around- with this wind. Regardless of who is responsible for triggering the initial waves, each and every living thing is somehow meant to be responsible to find its new location and position according to these spontaneous or gradual alterations. Well, humankind can easily be said to have some more proactive roles in this process and some may find the courage to lead the wind or at least stay away the mainstream, where the rest are gone with the flow. This new post will be basically about the "change" itself, because the object I am exposed to lately -in a live performance in Lantaren Venster in Rotterdam, is a new album called "She Moves On" from one of my favorite vocalists, Youn Sun Nah. Before that, starting from the "Voyage" in 2009, she has recorded three very nice albums with the fine European jazz label ACT, each of which are precious pieces of my archive. (you can find one of my previous posts on an album of hers:http://fatih-erkan.blogspot.nl/2014/02/youn-sun-nahs-2013-album-lento-and-youn.html). Although the first album carries the "change" theme inherently within the title -mostly because of her first move from hometown to Paris-, Youn Sun Nah was kind of mentioning that she is living with the naïve South Korean singer with the next album called "Same Girl". The third album Lento was already a big step, increasing the international exposure reflected in the album sales, but we can easily say that the overall sound and style of both her vocal and arrangements were around the same line within these three albums. Now, Youn Sun Nah really moves on with the last album changing not only the way she sings but also the style of the band. The real change indeed is also related to the fact that the impressive New York based band is much more in the generated sound rather than being an accompaniment for our crystal clear voice.

To be honest, having Marc Ribot on guitars, Jamie Saft on keys ranging from piano to Hammond, Brad Jones on double bass and Dan Riesser on drums is already sufficient to create a very warm and cozy sound for a killer album. Adding a curved and a little bit Americanized version of the acrobatic voice of Youn Sun Nah on some catchy and cool arrangements (mostly from Jamie Saft, Vanessa Saft and Youn Sun Nah) with this band seems to have created the biggest step for Youn Sun Nah's singing career - probably opening the US scene for her more than ever. Specifically, I feel myself very lucky to be able to listen to this album firstly from LP record because the successful mastering seems to have very well fit with the timeless ambience and sound of the album.

The first -the smooth introduction- track Traveller reminded me of the previous album's locomotive piece Lament mostly for its lyrics and cool voice of Youn Sun Nah. The standalone performance of the band is an abstract statement for the following blast. The second number is a very interesting arrangement for Lou Reed's Teach The Gifted Children and it really sounds like the blues and/or gospel connection of the album especially thanks to hot and impressive tones carried out by Marc Ribot. Consistent to the shuffling energy level throughout the album, Too Late -in contrast to the title and lyrics- invites you directly to hold your lover's hands and pull her/him to a sentimental cheek-to-cheek dance with its touchy fender tones and triplet rhythm sections from Brad Jones and Dan Riesser. The title track is an energetic arrangement of Paul Simon's well known piece giving the clues of the inspiration behind the album and Youn Sun Nah's definitive vocal is very well blended with the impressive acoustic performance of Marc Ribot and funky Wurlitzer tone. No Other Name (a Noel Paul Stookey song) is a great acoustic duo of vocal and guitar, which once again shows what a great vocalist Youn Sun Nah is. A nice cover for Joni Mitchell's amazing song The Dawntreader is very well achieved by a very organic accompaniment between the band and Youn Sun Nah. Drifting (of Jimi Hendrix for sure) is especially impressive with again the nice guitar touches and nicely/softly reverberated vocal. The way the performance evolves into a nice guitar solo accompanied by a deep and back vocal finished by a chaotic ending is really something new for a Youn Sun Nah album. Started with amazing three notes from Kalimba played by Youn Sun Nah, Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair somehow connected to the singer's previous albums not only for this well known sound but also for the lyrics and the way she sings. Please give attention to the nice performance by Brad Jones. Like two pieces for the romantic soundtrack album of the same movie, Fools Rush In (Rube Bloom / Johnny Mercer) -especially thanks to the touchy vocal and hammond tone-and Evening Star -mostly thanks again to the warm accompaniment from Marc Ribbot- are the closing themes of this great album.

Recorded by Vin Cin, mixed by Vin Cin & Jamie Saft in Sear Sound NY and mastered by Scott Huli at Masterdisk NY, the album is very successful sound design-wise. The seperation of different instruments and the locations on the stage can easily be heard. The album is produced by Jamie Saft who is also behind the nice arrangements. The executive producer is Hub Music. 

ADHD6, ADHD, May 2017

Missing their jazzahead performance back in 2015 - among most-liked ones of my jazz professional friends in there at that time - I know I would not make the same mistake when I first saw two months ago that Icelandic jazz band ADHD is visiting Cloud Nine of Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht for a live performance on March. A single seamless set of almost 90 minutes, which is full of tensional swinging between too many different textures both in electronic and acoustic world and improvisational patterns sourcing both from jazz and rock genres, pushed me directly to the sales corner after the performance and I could not help myself buying as much as I can from their rare -pressed and released in Iceland previously- albums. Luckily, I had also the last album ADHD6, which includes most of the tunes played in the performance and is being released now in May. So, here is what I have to say after listening to the ADHD6 several times following that night.

Even though it is presented in eight individual tracks, this album can be described as a single (or two set at most) performance of around 45 minutes, where certain differences in rhythms and main themes create the boundaries of separate pieces. Even just with this organic structure, one can easily notice that the roots of the musical and social relationship between band members is a long established one.

The album starts with a track called MAGNÚS TRYGVASON ELIASSEN, which is also the name of the drummer of the band. The main line seems to be constructed on the keyboarder DAVÍÐ ÞÓR JÓNSSON's dark bass lines and carried by the modest theme delivered by the saxophonist ÓSKAR GUÐJÓNSSON. The rise and fall of the tension is successfully controlled by the drummer throughout the piece and the soft guitar touches by ÓMAR GUÐJÓNSSON seems like the last ingredient in this minimal, yet very sophisticated, sonar stew. The last distortions of this first piece sounds like turning into the first random sparks of the creation in the second number, LEVON. The cool bass line from Omar's bass guitar brings the scattered pieces together down to the ground and is accompanied by the shuffles of the keyboards. The sax is kind of a free format poem over this top notch rhythm line. Some high pitch feedback tones carried from this piece turns into the third track SPESSI, which sounds like carrying two very separated themes using stage one by one. The first one feels as if we are in a cool-lounge performance while the other one plays like a Nordic ballad with some naïve melodies from the saxophone. The bass line getting mushy and the drum-line turns into psychedelic patterns with the keyboard through the end of this third track. REBROFF is born as an amazingly touchy ballad-like sax partition connected to this crowded end. All the accompaniment made by the other instruments are consistent with this ambience. The solo part from the guitar and its tone in general are two very impressive highlights not only for this piece but for the whole album.

ALLI KRILLI looks like the first piece of the second set and carry some very catchy lines especially performed by saxophone. The band somehow manages to decrease the bpm of the whole performance gradually and keeps on playing the same tune - for me it is like zooming into a great landscape from Iceland. The electrical content from the keyboard and guitar, which almost sounds like a natural sound from underneath the earth, is really impressive in this piece. FYRIR RÚNA is the pure Nordic number in the album especially with its melancholic keyboard lines and spacious saxophone performance carrying lots of air inside - very successfully recorded indeed. TVÖFALDUR VİKINGUR increases the energy a little bit and moves us back into an interesting psychedelic-lounge genre based on continuous drum and deep bass riffs surrounded by an electric ambient and propelled by a naïve saxophone, which I am sure sounds strange as a genre description. MED İVARI closes the album with a gradually slowed-down and dignified tempo. It somehow sounds like a conclusion for the whole album carrying familiar textures from some of the other pieces.

The recording, mixing and mastering of the album seem like to be achieved well - although the complex sound palette is distributed over several layers and the dynamic range is very high, the instruments can be easily located in individual places within a wide stage. Plus, being able to hear the saxophone this much detailed and natural in an album, which is heavily allocated with electronic-based rhythms, is giving a certain feeling of reliance about the quality in general to the listener .

Even though there are now 6 albums from ADHD, I strongly recommend you listen them live because these guys were really born to play live. What you can get from the album is at most half of what's really going on with the concerts. Here is their tour program from their own website: http://adhd-music.com/tour/


...and here is a sample from one of their latest live performances:

The Blog Turns Back to Its Roots, Chris Potter Quartet in Bimhuis May 3rd 2017

Bimhuis has always been in my must-see-list. To be honest, I found it strange and a little bit pity for myself that I had not been there since last night - although I have been in Amsterdam several times before and I started to live in Netherlands two months ago... We can all blame the incredible North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam for this since it had basically been the main reason for my travels before, saturating my appetite for jazz and preventing me from asking for more during my one-day-sightseeing-visits around the Dam. Well, it seems that the Jazz God was waiting for the right time in order to make a memorial night for me.

It was more than 5 years ago when I decided to start to write a jazz blog and even I am not good at designing catchy blog lay-outs, I was aware of the fact that I needed a meaningful photo that carry some memories for me within itself. My long time followers were expecting to see a snapshot from my all time favourite trio E.S.T at that time, but I chose a concert from London Jazz Festival 2011 instead. It was a concert dedicated to 50 years of Impulse! records and the legendary McCoy Tyner was on piano. Chris Potter was the special selection of that night on the saxophone, carrying this well-deserved honor at the spacious performance hall in the amazing Barbican Center. I should confess that I had not heard a lot on him till that night but I was lucky enough to join the interview of BBC Radio 3 with him just before the concert. One thing I will never forget about that concert is the long standing-ovation for McCoy Tyner, which started right after his entrance to the stage and lasted for minutes. I think that was the time that I am impressed a lot by the enthusiasm within the idea of jazz and its not-so-many supporters both from performers and listeners side. That was the time – as far as I remember – that I decided to share what I feel about the music I love listening to. It was without any purpose and I wasn’t expecting anything in return. It was the first artistic feeling I get – a deep and priceless satisfaction with no pragmatic prejudgments.

 

Thus, it started like that and with so many peaks and deeps I kept on writing within this blog. I feel so lucky and humble that I have been able to join so many performances and listened to so many jazz albums – all around the world. Now, while writing these lines on the last train from Amsterdam to my home in Eindhoven, I feel the same satisfaction. Once again, thanks to the great performance of Chris Potter Quartet in Bimhuis, Amsterdam last night, I feel complete and full enough to keep on sharing. It is hard to give a single reason why I am so impressed and got emotional. The elegant and modest tone of Chris Potter both from tenor and soprano sax, his great compositions in the last album from ECM, Dreamer is the Dream, the amazing Nasheet Waits on drums, the great solo performances of pianist David Virelles and bassist Joe Martin, heavenly acoustic conditions of Bimhuis right next to the Amsterdam Port and -last but not least- the unique view of wide glass background of the stage letting you see the busy Dutch trains landing on and off to the Central Station... They, all together, pushed me to write these lines which can be defined as the ones connecting the blog back to the roots that I have been feeding from for a long time. It is this connection and idea indeed what make me to keep on writing – who knows, maybe for forever.

Stay connected for following posts which will be on some very good jazz albums that I have listened to lately.

 

 

My Best Jazz Albums of 2016 List

1. In Movement - Jack DeJohnette, Ravi Coltrane, Matthew Garrison, ECM

2. Blues and Ballads - Brad Mehldau Trio, Nonesuch Records

3. The Ystad Concert, A Tribute to Jan Johansson - Jan Lundgren, ACT 

4. Black Ice - Wolfert Brederode Trio, ECM

5. How Long is Now? - Iiro Rantala, Lars Danielsson, Peter Erskine,  ACT

6. A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke - Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, ECM

7. Beyond Now - Donny McCaslin, Motema

8. Upward Spiral - Branford Marsalis Quartet, OKeh Records 

9. E.S.T. Symphony, ACT 

10. Parallax - Phronesis, Edition Records