Category: jazz

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Joan Pérez-Villegas Releases a Breezy and Whimsical New Composition

Mallorca, Spain-born, Bern, Switzerland-based percussionist, composer, bandleader and producer Joan Pérez-Villeagas can trace the origins of his music career to when he began studying percussion at eight years ago old at the Conservatory of Music and Dance in Palma. When Villegas turned 19, he relocated to Barcelona, where earned a Bachelor’s in Classical and Contemporary Percussion at ESMUC. Interestingly, while in Barcelona, the Mallorca-born, Bern-based artist developed a deep interest in jazz and traditional music that led him to earn a Masters in Jazz Composition under the tutelage of Lluís Vidal.

Throughout his young career, Villegas has been involved with a diverse array of projects across an eclectic array of styles and genres including chamber music, classical symphonies, pop, traditional music, jazz and even scores for dance, theater, and film. During that same period, he has managed to be rather busy: he has studied with the Balearic Symphony Orchestra, been a guest artist at Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival (SICMF) 2016 in South Africa and at Festival Cistermusica 2016 in Portugal with his percussion duo Face two Phase, which won first prize at the fourth annual International Chamber Music Competition Cidade Alcobaça (CIMCA) in Portugal.

Released earlier this year, the Pérez-Villegas and Marc Urrutia co-produced, Blau Salvatge is Perez-Villages’ full-length debut as a compeer and bandleader. Recorded over the course of two days with Alberto Pérez at Barcelona’s Sol de Sants Studio and collection of friends and fellow students including Pau Lligadas (bass), Josep Cordobés (drums), Ariadna Rodríguez (violin), Pau Vidal (flute), Toni Pineño (clarinet), Joan Mar Sauqué (trumpet), Max Salgado (French horn), Leire Corpas (guitar) and of course, Pérez-Villegas (marimba and vibraphone) at Barcelona’s Sol de Sants Studio, the album’s material is centered around six kaleidoscopic compositions that manage to be individually distinct and focused on a different compositional process. And yet, each composition is part of a larger, cohesive whole.

Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “Valvé.” Centered around a cinematic and mind-bending arrangement, the composition finds a talented collection of young musicians darting, weaving, bopping and strutting through several different tempos and styles — including Birth of the Cool and Kind of Blue-era Miles Davis, Horace Silver, breezy Brazilian jazz, Spanish folk music and film and TV scores — while evoking contemplation, awe, wonder and childlike whimsy.

Blau Salvage’s latest single “Algorritme I” continues in a similar vein as its predecessor as it’s a whimsical and breezy composition that features elements of hard bop, jazz fusion and film scores in a way that recalls Danny Elfman and JOVM mainstay Jonathan Scales. Of course, what truly makes the composition is the effortless yet soulful playing of each musician.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Italian Act The Apex Releases an Expansive, Prog Rock Take on Jazz Fusion

With the release of last year’s debut EP Here Comes The Apex, the Rome-based jazz rock/jazz fusion trio The Apex — Francesco Carrreti (guitar, production). Francesco Ferilli (bass) and Danilo Ombres (drums) — quickly established a songwriting approach and sound inspired by Weather Report, Miles Davis, Robert Glasper, Squarepusher, Snarky Puppy and others.

While supporting their EP with live shows in and around Rome, the act spent the next year writing and working on the compositions that would eventually comprise their forthcoming full-length debut, Kick Me with arranger/producer Toni Armetta. The album’s latest single, the eponymously titled “The Apex” features guest spots from Javier Girotto (sax) and Banco del Mutuo Socorso’s Gianni Nocenzi. Interestingly enough, the expansive composition sonically — to my ears, at least — reminds me of a slick yet soulful synthesis of Nothing Like the Sun-era Sting, Return to Forever/the aforementioned Weather Report with a subtly prog bent.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Swiss Jazz Act Gianfranco GFN Teams up with Florence Chitacumbi on a Breezy and Sweet Love Song

Gianfranco GFN is a Swiss guitarist, composer and bandleader, whose work is influenced by jazz, blues, bossa nova, funk and rock. Leading a band that features longtime collaborators Stèphane Joerg (percussion) and Mimmo Pisino (double bass), Gianfranco GFN has released two instrumental albums and an EP — 2011’s Linnea, 2016’s Downtown in Person 70s and the Interlude EP. Interestingly, Interlude and Downtown in Person 70s had a handful of tracks — two and four respectively — that received airplay on Swiss radio.

Before the writing and recording of the band’s third album, 2019’s CA’GIAZZ, the trio expanded into a quartet with the addition of vocalist Florence Chitacumbi. The 11 song album features collaborations with 14 different artists with several tracks off the album receiving airplay on Swiss, French, German, Irish and Russian radio stations.

In February, Gianfranco GFN and his band entered the studio to record the material which would comprise their fourth album, slated for release next year. Simultaneously the Swiss act recorded acoustic material, which they’ve immediately released online, including their latest single “Adagio.” “Adagio” is a breezy and strutting blues featuring Chitacumbi’s easygoing and soulful Sharon Jones-like vocals, shimmering acoustic guitar, shuffling percussion and supple double bass. And at its core, the song is a sweet and old-timey love song, full of devotion and a familiar longing.

Gianfranco GFN released an intimately shot bit of live footage of the act performing “Adagio” in the studio.

Throwback by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 103rd Birthday Dizzy Gillespie!

JOVM celebrates what would have been Dizzy Gillespie’s 103rd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Reykjavik’s Óregla Releases an Expansive and Mischievous Single

Óregla is a rising, Reykjavik, Iceland-based jazz/progressive funk octet led by composer and trumpeter Daníel Sigurðsson that derives its name from the Icelandic word for chaos or irregularity. Featuring some of the country’s rising jazz musicians, the act is inspired by a diverse and eclectic array of influences including Igor Stravinsky, Miles Davis and Frank Zappa.

While Sigurðsson crafts compositions featuring arrangements centered around a brass section consisting of two tenor saxophones and a trumpet, guitar, bass, keys, drums and some bursts of orchestral percussion, the members of the act aim to push the boundaries of their music and sound with a funky and lively atmospheric and a sense of humor.

The act released their latest album Þröskuldur Góðra Vona (The Threshold of Good Hopes) earlier this year, and the album’s latest single “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” is a expansive track, centered around rapidly changing and very odd time signature changes as the song progresses — and some deft playing, that alternates between mischievous playfulness, contemplation and a breakneck swing.

The live footage features the band performing “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” at Tónkvísl for Reykjavik Sessions back in 2014.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Monsieur MÂLÂ Releases a Breezy Two-Step Inducing Latin-Tinged Single

Monsieur MÂLÂ is a French musical collective — Balthazar Naturel (sax), Robin Antunes (violin/mandolin), Nicholas Vella (keys), Swaéli Mbappé (bass) and Mathieu Edward (drums) — that features musicians, who have played with a who’s who list of contemporary, internationally acclaimed artists including De La Soul, Mayra Andrade, CHASSOL, Ibrahim Maalouf, China Moses and a lengthy list of others.

Released earlier this year, the act’s debut single “Misemo” features a sinuous bass line, soulful horns, twinkling strings and stuttering polyrhythm within an expansive, tempo shifting, Latin and Tropicalia-like composition. With fall officially upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, this song is a reminder of warm summer nights dancing and returning home singing love songs to yourself. Unsurprisingly, the band explains that the composition encourages the listener, whoever they may be, that sometimes you just need to dance, and let it all go for a little while at least. God, how we could all use that, right about now.

Directed by Jonathan Schupak, the video for “Misemo” follows a diverse collection of people across race, gender and age listening to the song for the first time, capturing their earnest first impressions. The video reminds the viewer that in our morally bankrupt world, music is the only truly universal thing in our lives — and it may be one of the few things that truly binds us.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Spain’s Alba Careta Group Releases a Surreal Visual for Expressive “Oceans”

Although she’s just 25 years-old, the Avinyó, Spain-based trumpeter and bandleader Alba Careta has managed to be rather busy throughout her relatively young life and career: Careta has taken part in a number of different projects including Balkan Paradise Orchestra, Big Born Band, Cardona Jazz Quartet, Mamihlapinatapai, STOKA Ensemble, NSJO (Netherlands Student Jazz Orchestra), JM Jazz World Orchestra, MB Big Band, Ping-En Hung Quintet; she’s also collaborated with Santi Careta, Jofre Fité, Ferran Juamira Duo, Las Albits and she leads her own band Alba Careta Group with some of these collaborations occurring while she was earning her Masters in Jazz Trumpet at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Additionally, Careta has quickly established herself as one of the rising talents of the Catalan jazz scene.

Alades is Careta’s second album as a bandleader with a band that features Egor Doubay (tenor sax), Adrián Moncada (piano) Jort Terrwjin (double bass) and Joäo Guerra (drums) — and the album is the follow up to her critically applauded debut album Origins, which won the Enderrock Award for Best Jazz Album. Much like its predecessor, Alades’ material draws from the rising Spanish trumpeter’s experiences while studying and living in Holland. “The nostalgia of being far from home, the curiosity of knowing what life will bring and the desire to be next to the people I love are some of the feelings that you can find in my new album,” Careta says in press notes. Careta adds, “I simply gathered friends with whom I feel good playing; this is what later makes us all feel good on stage and out of it.”

“Oceans,: Alades’ latest single is centered around an expansive composition that alternates between a propulsive and breakneck swing led by Guerra’s rapid fire drumming and Moncada’s explosive blocks of twinkling chords and a brooding and atmospheric middle section. The entire composition is held together by Caretta’s and Doubay’s vibrant and expressive dueling solos, which may remind some listeners of bop era jazz. Throughout, the composition reveals a collective of musicians, who intuitively know when to lead, follow and push each other — or to just get out of the way when necessary. And while feeling remarkably oceanic, the song evokes a sense of awe, curiosity and joy.

Filmed and edited by LeCuala Films’ Aarón Barreiro, the recently released video for “Oceans” is centered around a surreal and dream-like logic in which household items — a drawer, a bed, a nightstand, two lamps are sink to the bottom of a pool, along with a trumpet. Towards, the middle, a blindfolded woman sinks to the bottom, towards the bed. We see her grab her trumpet and play underwater.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

On the evening of September 11, 2005, I returned home from a day job working as an Editorial Assistant at a small, Midtown Manhattan-based, family-owned book publisher of bilingual dictionaries and phrasebooks and international cuisine cookbook to my father cooking and playing John Coltrane‘s A Love Supreme.

My father was a very troubled man with whom I had a uneasy and difficult relationship for a significant portion of my life. But for some reason, playing Coltrane’s gorgeous and meditative opus on a day of such horror and terror seems like a fitting response. And it’s quickly become an annual tradition for me.

As always cherish life — especially today.