HurdAudio Rotation: The Lucky Hum

Jenny Scheinman: Shalagaster. 2004. Tzadik: TZ 7709.

Jenny Scheinman: violin
Myra Melford: piano, harmonium
Russ Johnson: trumpet
Trevor Dunn: bass
Kenny Wollesen: drums

Aggressive, downtown musicianship applied to a hybrid of folk music and jazz. The result achieves that rare balance of simplicity and sophistication. This is what happens when the effusive, improvisatory energies of some of the best players goes toward a music that keeps a strong melodic focus. An exquisite record with more than a few jaw dropping Myra Melford solos. This is a great ensemble. Highly recommended.

Matana Roberts: Lines for Lacy: Ellington/Staryhorn for Solo Saxophone. 2007. Limited edition CD-R.

Matana Roberts: alto saxophone

With the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn as grounding melodic landscape, Matana Roberts swims from within this music with a fluid sense of improvisational purpose. The dedication of this live solo set to the soprano saxophone great Steve Lacy adds yet another vibrant dimension of passion to this performance. Matana Roberts sustains her unaccompanied presence by drawing upon a deep reservoir of personal love - a love devoid of any crass, commercial sense of the word - to play well within the living, breathing interior of this material. Acting as a flexing, connective tissue between a lineage of jazz that clearly includes this outstanding alto saxophonist.

Kenny Dorham: Trompeta Toccata. 1964 (2006 Rudy Van Gelder remaster). Blue Note Records: 0946-3-62635-2-6.

Kenny Dorham: trumpet
Joe Henderson: tenor saxophone
Tommy Flanagan: piano
Richard Davis: bass
Albert Heath: drums

Jazz has seen more than its fair share of artists deserving more enthusiastic recognition. And it's the divine craftsmen like Kenny Dorham that are especially under-celebrated. Dorham was one of the hard bop era's most consistently great arrangers and soloists with an introspective bent. Even the trumpet showcase title track "Trompeta Toccata" displays a thinking man's approach to showing off one's chops. That such an amazing record could spend so much time under the radar - I mean Joe Henderson was his sideman on this session for crying out loud - is difficult to ponder. But an all to familiar part of so many jazz careers. There is plenty of material here in this short set to fuel new ideas and directions for current jazz artists even a half century after it was recorded. In short, this is one of the classic Blue Notes deserving of many more ears.

HurdAudio Rotation: At the Altar of Jazz

Matana Roberts: Matana. 2007. Individually painted CD-R available from the composer.

Matana Roberts: saxophone

Matana Roberts brings all the introspective, experienced and emotionally raw material of a writer to her improvised, solo alto saxophone performances. Her individual voice drawing upon the tangible influences and sense of self she dedicates to the expressively lyrical lines that emerge. This short set is an offering to the music of Steve Lacy. Sonically stated with a voice that is often both strong and vulnerable. The strength found in asserting Matana's own place along the same continuum that includes the likes of Steve Lacy, Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker. The vulnerability found in the exposure of extended, unaccompanied solo improvisation as an act of honest homage to the greatness that serves as inspiration.

Kenny Dorham: Trompeta Toccata. 1964 (re-released in 2006 - Rudy Van Gelder edition). Blue Note Records: 0946 3 62635 2 6.

Kenny Dorham: trumpet
Joe Henderson: tenor saxophone
Tommy Flanagan: piano
Richard Davis: bass
Albert Heath: drums

This recording is an oasis of incredibly "right" music that couldn't be more on the mark at the end of a crazy week. If your ears have ever been hooked by Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers then you already know the outstanding arrangements that Kenny Dorham produced. With the opening title track the air immediately fills with the allure of Dorham's arranging prowess applied to his own compositions. Stacked with a hot quintet, this is another one of the classic, jaw-dropping Blue Note records from a truly golden era. Kenny Dorham is a trumpet player and composer that continues to grow on these ears - leaving unexpectedly deep impressions with each passing.

Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet: Husky. 2006. Hyena Records: HYN 9349.

Skerik: tenor saxophone
Craig Flory: baritone saxophone, clarinet
Hans Teuber: alto saxophone, flute
Steve Moore: trombone, wurlitzer
Joe Doria: hammond organ
Dave Carter: trumpet
John Wicks: drums
guest - Isalee Teuber: vocals on one track

In the soundscape of Critters Buggin', another one of Seattle-based Skerik's dynamic vehicles of musical mayhem - the funk is all dominant. With Syncopated Taint that same engine sits under the hood as it propels the charts along. The churning organ lines from Joe Doria give this sound its purr as the horn section shifts gears through melodic vistas. The funk is tempered down into soul-drenched bed with frequent bursts of groove-heavy energy leading in and around heady solos.

Guelph Jazz Festival 2008: Spanning Between the Street and the Ivory Towers

With a touching and familiar sense of enthusiasm for participating in the art of improvised music the young, and instinctively artful member of Guelph's KidsAbility sitting just to the left of Matana Roberts sprang to his feet at nearly the moment the call for volunteer conductors was announced. It was in this first set under the tent on Upper Wyndham Street on a day of free street performances stretching past midnight that the principle of giving back to the community through music and improvisation was at its clearest and most positive manifestation. Rich Marsella dutifully handed over the baton and conducting signs and placed himself before this child's feet as a performer realizing a new vision. With an ensemble of percussion instruments - many homemade - designed to allow an ensemble of youth with varying developmental challenges along with additional support and direction from Matana Roberts on alto saxophone produced the sound of sheer joy in creating and participating before a warm audience. The breadth of a festival and colloquium that approaches creative improvisation with uncompromising passion that includes both the heady, ponderous academic work along side moments of real, street-level realizations of astonishing inclusiveness serves to challenge and expand one's sense of what this music is and what it can be. Improvised music can be many things; sublime, agitated, transcendent, an expansion of tradition, a prayer for the soul or a display of impressive virtuosity. Matana Roberts, Rich Marsella and the KidsAbility Ensemble presented a side of this music that is deeply generous, playful and affecting.

Earlier in the week, Matana Roberts performed the prologue from her Coin Coin project. The prologue is a solo set for voice and alto saxophone designed as a "bloodsound narrative," a deeply personal work that weaves the stories of Roberts' ancestors into a performance that connects to her extended family through sound. With candles lit and photographs projected along the white wall behind Roberts this prologue began with song that moves slowly from words to linear material on the alto. The ache to connect to deep roots ever present in sound and manner. As the performance shifted slowly back to words sung along the melodic contours that make up this creative expression one could almost feel the presence of an approving lineage of souls so lovingly acknowledged and celebrated by this performance. Matana Roberts has set upon a path of self-discovery and artistic sensibility that speaks toward a larger humanity. I am curious to hear the other movements of Coin Coin.

HurdAudio Rotation: 3 Landscapes

Muzikas: The Bartok Album. 1999. Rykodisc: HNCD 1439.

Peter Eri: viola, guitar, percussion, flute
Daniel Hamar: bass, small cimbalom, gardon, percussion
Laszlo Porteleki: violin
Mihaly Sipos: violin
with guests -
Marta Sebestyen: vocals
Alexander Balanescu: violin
Janos Kovacs: tamboura
Zoltan Juhasz: long flute
Marton Eri: cello
Zoltan Porteleki: cimbalom
Zoltan Farkas: gardon, drum, dance
Ildiko Toth: dance

The Hungarian folk tunes that infused the music of Bela Bartok come full circle in this recording as the animated melodies and dance rhythms that appeared in and inspired chamber and orchestral music return to the eastern European countryside where they are played with verve as folk music. One can hear the melodic twists and vibrant qualities that caught Bartok's ear in this recreation of how this music might have sounded as Bartok was documenting and exploring it. Muzikas give this music an energy and vitality that is irresistible that conveys incredible insight into how striking this body of music is and why it triggers a yearning to preserve its spirit and sound.

Chicago Tentet: American Landscapes 2. 2007. Okka Disk: OD12068.

Peter Brötzmann: composer, clarinet, tarogato, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone
Mats Gustafsson: baritone saxophone, slide saxophone
Ken Vandermark: clarinet, baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone
Joe McPhee: trumpet, alto saxophone
Hannes Bauer: trombone
Per-ake Holmlander: tuba
Fred Lonberg-Holm: cello
Kent Kessler: bass
Paal Nilssen-Love: drums
Michael Zerang: drums

Peter Brötzmann's aggressive energy and harshly beautiful large ensemble sound finds deep resonance with the anxieties and anger lurking beneath the calm exterior of the human experience. These American Landscapes are long-form bursts of sustained sonic intensity that find introspective pockets within a willingness to exude wild bursts of noise. Brötzmann continues to be a fascination at HurdAudio and these Chicago Tentet pieces - with their accurate reflection of the "American Landscape" rendered in sound - lend this German saxophonist and composer an Alexis de Tocqueville quality for a different medium in a different age.

Matana Roberts: Matana. 2007. Individually painted CD-R available from the composer.

Matana Roberts: saxophone

This one is a live solo set dedicated to the great Steve Lacy. Matana Roberts has a riveting voice on her instrument and a deep sense of personal history. This recording is a tantalizing - and all too brief - glimpse of what she has to say and the artistry she brings to what she plays. After hearing her perform live at this year's High Zero festival and putting an ear to this disc I continue to anticipate the music yet to be heard from this emerging artist and happily drink in the music currently at hand.