HIGH PULP " DAYS IN THE DESERT "

Days in the Desert è una visione che si avvera, trovando High Pulp emergere completamente nel proprio suono. Radicato nella tradizione jazz ma anche colpito dall'indie-rock e dalla musica elettronica, il terzo album di High Pulp rivela la band che realizza i propri punti di forza, approfondisce i propri legami e spinge le proprie abilità in una nuova entusiasmante visione sonora inimmaginabile solo pochi anni before.High Pulp THE BAND si prende una pausa dalla sbrigativa vita da strada per esplorare un mondo più delicato di sapore e profilo. Dopo mesi di sperimentazione, High Pulp presenta una salsa piccante dal sapore inedito. I sussurri nel settore abbondano, poiché la band ha mantenuto la salsa top secret, lavorando sotto la copertura della notte in un luogo sconosciuto. Il risultato è una salsa che va dalla canna affumicata del nabisco ai sentori dolci di marmellata di miele. Sì, è vero che High Pulp infonde alla salsa le stesse strabilianti proprietà psichedeliche della musica dolce e dolce che presentano sul palco... ma non preoccuparti: le allucinazioni non ti impediranno di affrontare il tuo quotidiano... HIGH PULP

MATANA ROBERTS "COIN COIN CHAPTER FOUR : MEMPHIS"

Matana Roberts ritorna con il quarto album della sua straordinaria serie in un progetto che ha meritatamente guadagnato il più alti elogi e diffusi applausi della critica, per la sua feroce originalità estetica e il suo potere narrativo incrollabile.Dall'archivio di Roberts una profonda  ricerca personale sui lasciti della tratta degli schiavi e sugli antenati dell'identità dell'esperienza americana. Roberts enfatizza anche soggetti non maschili e tematizza queste storie di altro genere con una serie di tecniche vocali e verbali: Singspeak, recitazione glossolalica sommersa, ululato catartico gutturale, voce operistica, ninna nanna dolce, canto di gruppo e recupero di vari tradizioni popolari americane e gli spiriti.Affiorino in modo frammentario come pezzi non costruiti. La radice di questa vocalità deriva dalla sua dedizione all'eredità del suo strumento principale scelto, il sassofono contralto.La migliore registrazione jazz del 2019 secondo il mio modesto parere.Ci sono voluti diversi ascoltatori per consentire al genio di questo album di affondare davvero. Ora posso dire con certezza che questo è uno dei miei album preferiti del 2019. Un ambizioso progetto della compositrice e sassofonista africano-americana Matana Roberts che traccia un percorso stilisticamente eclettico, che va a costruire una narrazione polifonica attorno alle vicende di una figura della storia familiare della musicista, la piccola Liddie, cresciuta nelle difficoltà della Memphis razzista. MATANA ROBERTS

YAZZ AHMED "POLYHYMNIA"

Un album brillante, denso, eccitante con esibizioni e arrangiamenti straordinari ... Yazz Ahmed è un trombettista e compositore britannico-bahreiniano. Attraverso la sua musica, cerca di confondere i confini tra jazz, folk arabo e sound design elettronico, riunendo i suoni del suo patrimonio misto in quello che è stato descritto come "jazz arabo psichedelico, inebriante e avvincente".Album calmo e non così facile da ascoltare, ma che cresce su di te se ti prendi il tempo di ascoltare alcune volte diligentemente. Già stabilito al centro della nuova dinamica scena jazz di Londra, ha avuto un impatto globale e registrato numerose recensioni entusiastiche.Per pura bellezza senza eguali, ci sono pochi album di qualsiasi genere che raggiungono queste altezze esaltanti.Questo album è una celebrazione del coraggio femminile, determinazione e creatività. Polyhymnia, l'antica Musa greca della musica, della poesia e della danza: una Dea per l'arte. YAZZ AHMED

MELANGE "VIA MARIS"

Melange seamlessly blend music from North Africa, the Middle East and Mediterranean, incorporating elements of jazz improvisation and dynamic arrangements. The group was formed by cellist Shirley Smart on returning to London after 10 years living and working in Jerusalem with several of the different traditions there – Moroccan, Egyptian, Lebanese, Turkish and Persian, as well as jazz.The group now performs a mixture of traditional and original material, drawing its inspiration from the above traditions while also reflecting their links also to western music. They combine also traditional and modern improvisation, including both maqam and jazz. Melange is a true reflection of modern cosmopolitanism, comprising musicians from Greece, Spain, Morocco, Iraq, Italy and the UK. MELANGE
 

OLIVER LAKE ORGAN QUARTET "WHAT I HEARD"

Composer, saxophonist, poet and Guggenheim Fellow, Oliver Lake, is one of jazz's most prolific and eclectic artists of the last 40 years. Oliver Lake is known for everything from his solo saxophone performances and recordings; to his solo music-theater work; to his reggae-jazz group Jump Up; to his work as a founding member of the World Saxophone Quartet; to his Oliver Lake Big Band; to the Oliver Lake Steel Quartet which performed at The Space in 2004; and The Organ Quartet, one of his most recent projects. Lake was a founding member of the Black Artists Group (BAG) in St Louis in the 1970's where he grew up with trumpeter Lester Bowie and pianist John Hicks. He has received multiple commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and his works have been performed by the Arditti String Quartet, the World Saxophone Quartet, the Amherst Sax Quartet, violinist Regina Carter, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the San Francisco Contemporary Players, New York New Music Ensemble, and Pulse Percussion Ensemble of New York. He has worked with a wide range of artists including the pop singer Björk, rocker Lou Reed, jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln and rap group, A Tribe Called Quest. Other projects include a collaboration with writer and law professor Patricia Williams, and the Quagmire Trio with komungo player Jin Hi Kim and bassist William Parker. Also an exhibiting visual artist, Lake continues to perform worldwide with his own ensembles as well as in Trio Three, the long-standing cooperative trio with percussionist Andrew Cyrille and bassist Reggie Workman (sometimes augmented by pianist Geri Allen). OLIVER LAKE
 

GOGO PENGUIN "V2.0"

Manchester trio GoGo Penguin are hotly tipped as the rising stars of the UK Jazz scene. Featuring pianist Chris Illingworth, bassist Nick Blacka and drummer Rob Turner, GoGo Penguin are an exhilarating live act, drawing on a heady brew of influences from Aphex Twin to Brian Eno, Debussy to Shostakovich and Massive Attack to EST.
Their debut album Fanfares (Gondwana Records) has won rave reviews from the Guardian to BBC Music and support from the likes of Mike Chadwick and Gilles Peterson and was nominated for best jazz album at the World Wide Awards. It is the band’s unique ability to synthesis and develop each others melodic and harmonic ideas while drawing on music from classical to electronica that makes GoGo Penguin’s music so enthralling and their debut album such a powerful opening salvo from a powerful new voice in UK music. GOGO PENGUIN
 

DYLAN HOWE "SUBTERRANEAN" NEW DESIGNS ON BOWIE'S BERLIN

Dylan Howe is an acclaimed drummer and bandleader, whose versatility and swing has led him to work in many genres and formats for the past 25 years.Best known for leading his quintet and other jazz groups since 2002 and his tenures with Ian Dury and the Blockheads (1997-2010), Steve Howe and Wilko
Johnson (2010-2013), coupled with extensive session work since 1990, playing with Nick Cave, Damon Albarn, Ray Davies, Paul McCartney, David Gilmour, Beth Gibbons, Gabrielle and Hugh Cornwell amongst many others.In February Dylan was asked to perform at Rest Is Noise Festival at the Southbank Centre with a special quartet lineup of his Stravinsky adaptations with co-leader Will Butterworth.In February and March he toured extensively with Wilko Johnson for his sold out farewell tour (also filmed for an imminent live DVD release).May-July comprised of gigs with Andy Sheppard and Denny Illet with their new group, as well sold out Summer festival sets with Wilko Johnson (including two upcoming shows at Japan’s Fuji Rock). DYLAN HOWE

MICHAEL BELLAR THE AS IS ENSEMBLE "OH NO OH WOW"

Michael Bellar has performed music on six continents but being a native of North Carolina, he stands by his slow, southern roots. Along with creating music and touring with his group, the AS-IS Ensemble, Michael has also toured and or recorded with Amos Lee, Art Garfunkel, Howie Day, Wheatus, Jump Little Children, Teddy Geiger, Euro pop superstar Giorgia and Jay Clifford’s Rosebud. His national TV appearances include Late Night with David Letterman, the Late Show with Conan O’Brien Show, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Ellen Degeneres Show, TRL, Good Morning America, Regis and Kelly and the CBS Morning Show. Michael has produced and scored music for CUT Music (LA), Fluid (NYC), Bang Michael is the founder, composer and keyboardist of the AS-IS Ensemble. This highly excitable, alt-jazz group has performed at such venues as Avery Fischer Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, South By Southwest and the JVC, Bell Atlantic and New York City Winter Jazz Festivals along with being the former house band at the world-famous Blue Note jazz club in NYC. They have opened for John Scofield, Tea Leaf Green, Medeski Martin & Wood, Grant Green Jr. and JFJO.  In a review of their first ever performance in New York City, they were hailed as “Generation Next” by Billboard Magazine. The group has recorded three studio CDs – “Turned On Turned Up” (2009), “Like It Is,” and “REACT!”Music and Razorhead. MICHAEL BELLAR
 

HILDEGARD LERNT FLIEGEN "THE FUNDAMENTAL RHYTHM OF UNPOLISHED BRAINS"

Founded in 2005 by singer and composer Andreas Schaerer, this Swiss sextet has already grown a beard and started to stay out late. Schaerer’s compositions slip through any easy attempts at categorization as easily as a trout squirms free of a fisherman’s hands. The group was finally brought ashore in 2007, when they released their first album for the Swiss label Unit Records. The reviews were glowing, sales were brisk, and the album had to be re-released after being sold out in a couple of months. Since then, the band has traveled thousands of kilometers on the Autobahn, drank many a liter of gas station coffee, and played more solos and refrains than they care to remember — on tours in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia. They’ve tickled the fancies of audiences and expert juries alike. In May 2008 the group won the ZKB Jazz Prize. The long and storied list of stages where Hildegard Lernt Fliegen has performed include many a jazz club and cabaret, but also festivals such as Jazznojazz Zürich, Cully Jazz, BeJazz Winterfestival, Offside Festival Geldern, Suisse Jazz Diagonales, Langnauer Jazz Nights, Dresdner Jazztage, and the Stanser Musiktage.November 2009 was no time for putting their feet up and relaxing by the fire. Au contraire, Hildegard had a date with destiny and was beaver-busy preparing their second album — Vom fernen Klang der Sache — appeared as a CD/picture-book designer by the Zurich-based illustrator Peter Baeder. Hildegard made her music video debut with the song “Seldom was Covered with Snow and an Old Oak,” in a charmingly surrealist staging directed by Maria Sigrist.Hildegard Lernt Fliegen made Russia their home in the fall of 2010. The group toured for two weeks through a landscape which seemed to have been painted just for them. Two stowaways on board — the filmmaker Michelle Brun and sound editor Martin Ruch — recorded the highlights of this Swiss-Soviet summit before locking themselves for a few months in an editing studio… Meanwhile, Hildegard continued touring, returning to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. The following fall the band returned to their ursine hometown (Bern) to release the CD Live in Moscow and their concert tour film Tales Wander. HILDEGARD LERNT FLIEGEN 
 

SAM ANNING TRIO "SWEETHEARTS"

Sam Anning è uno dei musicisti di Jazz più emergenti dell'Australia. Dopo essersi laureato ha continuato a studiare ed andare in giro per concerti nel Regno Unito, New York e in Europa, dove ha anche sviluppato e ampliato la sua composizione e lo stile di prestazioni. Ha ricevuto la borsa di studio di Toyota per il Jazz (2001), ed  è stato finalista per il James Morrison due volte, nonchè finalista al premio di Melbourne 2007 per la musica. Ha poi effettuato il 3 °posto nel 2008 al National Jazz Awards (basso) e ha ricevuto il premio di Bell 2008, per il giovane musicista Jazz dell'anno. Sam ha suonato con un gran numero di artisti nazionali e internazionali tra cui: Charlie Haden, Jim Black, Andy Milne, Bobby Shew, Sheila Jordan, Chris Cheek, Will Vinson, Dale Barlow, George Coleman Jr, Katie Noonan, Darren Sigesmund, James Morrison, George Garzone, Don Burrows, Terrell Stafford, Scott Tinkler, Julien Wilson, Graham Collier, Jamie Oehlers, Barney McAll, Greg Osby, Ingrid Jensen e Carl Orr. Sam è attualmente membro regolare di molte band tra cui The Joe Chindamo Trio, The Paul Grabowsky Trio, Washington/Grabowsky Band, The Ben Winkelman Trio, The Aaron Choulai Trio e il Trio di Zac Hurren. Questo "Sweethearts" è il suo ultimo album composto in trio, con Julien Wilson al Sax Tenore e Soprano, Clarinetto e Basso. Sam Anning al Basso e Allan Browne alla batteria.  SAM ANNING

TROPICS "NAUTICAL CLAMOR"