JazzMatters: The Best New Jazz of Autumn 2023

OTHER FAVORITES

Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter – Superblue: The Iridescent Spree (September 2023, Edition)

Kurt Elling, the premiere male jazz vocalist of the last two decades, and guitarist Charlie Hunter have a really good thing going. This is the second full-length release from their Superblue collaboration (in addition to two shorter EPs), and it reunites the quartet from their 2021 eponymous debut with drummer Corey Fonville and keyboards from DJ Harrison (of the band Butcher Brown). This is groove-based jazz that communicates with funk and soul but never seems lost to any kind of simplicity. The harmonies shift and grow complex, with Elling overdubbing harmonies that occasionally sound like they popped off a Take Six track and the singer launching into his trademark flights of vocalese, spinning tongue-twisting poetry into the air on top of the groove.

While Hunter and Elling offer one original (a chilled-out, atmospheric “Little Fairy Carpenter”, complete with a killer guitar hook), most of the tracks interpret brilliant songs from others. Joni Mitchell’s classic, “Black Crow”, is neatly updated with a slick backbeat and some sweet flute from Elena Pinderhughes, and Bob Dorough’s Schoolhouse Rock “Naughty Number Nine” sounds decidedly adult in this funky waltz with horns. Ron Sexsmith’s slippery “Right About Now” is a delicious come-on, with spare Fender Rhodes chords and a snapping snare beat pulling you in whatever direction Elling begs for.

But the track that is most arresting is “Only the Lonely Woman”, where Elling adds lyrics to Ornette Coleman’s classic melody above a skittering hip-hop groove from Fonville. Once the melody has been stated, Elling takes off on a sung story — with Hunter and Harrison coloring the space between voice and drums with textures, harmonies, and spacey lines. Most of Iridescent Spree is more of a party than this track (“Bounce It” by the drummer Nate Smith — who was featured on Superblue’s Guilty Pleasures EP — is nothing BUT fun, with three horn players getting nicely in the mix), but that’s what makes the album work so well. Hunter, who has always been a master of groove with a jazz bent, gives the Brooding Kurt Elling a reason to have fun. In this mixture, the head, heart, and feet are equally happily represented.

---

Kavita Shah – Cape Verdean Blues (September 2023, Folkalist)

Jazz fans who love Horace Silver will recognize the nod that this album’s title makes to the hard-bop pianist whose father was a native of Cape Verde, the archipelago off the west coast of Africa that was populated and colonized by Portugal in the 15th century. Kavita Shah is an American singer whose parents are from Mumbai but whose academic/musical studies include both jazz and Afro-Brazilian music and culture. On this ravishing and intimate recording, she is accompanied by guitarist Bau and virtuoso percussionist Miroca Paris, who have worked with Cesária Évora (familiarly known as “Cize”), the late Cape Verdean singer-songwriter.

Singing in both Portuguese and Cape Verdean Kriol, Shah is a precise and empathetic interpreter, coming to material that isn’t “jazz” but never “jazzing it up”, thank goodness. She inhabits the music as a visitor with wonderful skills and a limber sound that comes from the American tradition but isn’t hijacking it. Rather, she lets her band create the sound, and she elevates it by respecting it. On “Situações Triangulares”, for example, she sings a wordless melody above the traditional guitars, complementing rather than taking over. “Um Porta Aberte” offers her the chance to feature her relaxed ability with a ballad, and she sings in a duet with acoustic guitar with personality and vulnerability. The Brazilian material swings a bit more, but even on the Horace Silver title tune, Shah scats the familiar melody above percussion only, in balance with the music that she is honoring.

---

Todd Sickafoose – Bear Proof (September 2023, Group Chirp)

Sometimes I feel like I’m just barking into the wind about “the New Jazz”, which has been my verbal formulation of music that plainly comes out of the jazz tradition but borrows some compositional attitude and complexity from classical “new music”. That shit, I sometimes hear, is too complicated, it doesn’t swing, it doesn’t have an audience, etcetera and so forth. And sure, some of it is richly informed by an avant-garde tradition that isn’t exactly designed to sell records. But bassist Todd Sickafoose writes such beautiful, engaging stuff that he ought to win you over!

Bear Proof is a suite of nine songs that were recorded in a continuous single take, one flowing into the next with grace. The grandness of the conceit and the technical skill of the musicians in his Tiny Resistors band (including Allison Miller’s drums, Jenny Scheinman on violin, guitarist Adam Levy, Erik Deutsch on piano, Ben Goldberg on clarinet, cornetist Kirk Knuffke, and Rob Reich on accordion) are kind of “classical”, but the playfulness of the music, improvised or otherwise, says FUN.

“Switched On” is a tumbling groove in 5/4 that Dave Brubeck would recognize, but then the rhythm section stops playing and Knuffke solos over a floating blend of guitar, clarinet, and bass, giving way to a woven texture of Steve Reich-ian minimalism. Fans of Bill Frisell’s jazzy Americana sound will adore moments like “Magnetic North”, and the shimmering atmosphere and narrative feel of “Turns Luck” seems like it should win Sickafoose some film scoring gigs to add to the accolades he already has on Broadway (for his Hadestown orchestrations). 

What is most luscious about Bear Proof is how Sickafoose uses the colors of his band. Though there are wonderful melodies and outstanding improvisations from nearly every musician in the band, the real wonder of this recording is balance among the voices. As a result, it’s hard to say whether this is an eight-piece group that sounds like an orchestra rich in colors or sounds like an intimate quartet focused on the moment. It is worth several listens before you should even make up your mind.

---

Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society – Dynamic Maximum Tension (September 2023, Cercopithecine/Nonesuch)

I risk some embarrassment in admitting that the music from this incredible band and composer/arranger has always seemed intimidating to write about. Like Maria Schneider’s compositions and arrangements for the best jazz musicians in New York, Darcy James Argue’s music is layered, rich in both history and a forward-looking impulse, and hard to summarize in words. Originally from Vancouver but schooled at the New England Conservatory in part by the essential modern big band composer/arranger Bob Brookmeyer, Argue blew minds from his very first recording, Infernal Machines, which was nominated for a Grammy — like all his other work as well.

The new recording may be his best yet. The title Dynamic Maximum Tension could be a review, as the music is in constant flux, not often dissonant but usually hiding any obvious tonal center as different voices and sonorities weave, bob, and vie for attention. On “All In”, Argue uses his versatile trumpet section to throw arcs of different colors and textures into the air, some written and some improvised in this modern tone poem.

In contrast, “Last Waltz for Levon” is a hip, relaxed waltz that seems more harmonically tame — on the surface. Sure, you hear some of that country-gospel Band groove here as if Gil Evans had met up with Mr. Helm along the Metro North for a concert. The buttery trombone solo could be Levon, lifted but a cushion of Ellingtonian clarinets. Yet it keeps surprising you. An actual vocalist (Cecil McLoren Salvant in a Blossom Dearie kind of mood) appears on “Mae West: Advice”, delivering a poem by Paisley Rekdal, a composition that uses a more recognizable harmonic song form with an arrangement that pushes and pulls you until a supple flugelhorn solo emerges to steal the show.

The (double-length) album’s centerpiece, however, is “Tensile Curves”, a 34-minute suite inspired by Ellington’s “Diminuendo in Blue” and “Crescendo in Blue”. Argue cops more than a couple of Ellington flavors (muted brass glissandi, punching low brass figures, flights of clarinet improvisation), but the language is mostly decidedly modern, with voicings and rhythmic patterns that belong to the new century. A relaxed trumpet improvisation a third of the way in rides atop a toggling, clock-like figure that is punctuated by a six-note, growling guitar figure that gradually adds the entire orchestra to its weight. It is supremely Ellintonian but something Duke couldn’t quite have imagined. 

---

Joshua Redman – Where Are We? (September 2023, Blue Note)

Saxophonist Joshua Redman plays with a ripe sound and sense of surprise that might be easy to take for granted — he is one of the few jazz musicians of this era who is close to a brand name, so of course, he’s very good, but possibly a bit safe? This new recording has a gimmick or two: it is Redman’s first full-on partnership with a singer, Gabrielle Cavassa, and each song title contains the name of a place in the United States. So perhaps the surprise is how novel, strong, and even quirky this major label release is.

The mash-up of the standard love song “Stars Tell on Alabama” (an ingenious sax/voice duet with no rhythm section) and John Coltrane’s “Alabama” is bold, with the sinuous grace of the former duet running straight into the anguish of latter, with drummer Brian Blade nearly stealing the show from the leader. Another wondrous combination is the fusing of the classic “Chicago Blues” with the chord pattern of Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago”, which plays directly to the strengths of pianist Aaron Parks.

Cavassa, who won the 2021 Sarah Vaughan Jazz Vocal Competition, is a find. She sounds just enough like the classic jazz singers without ever being a mimic — she has the crackle and bent notes of Holiday but evens it all out with a creamy finish. Her singing on the still-ravishing “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” (given a bossa treatment here) is heart-breaking. Other guests make the recital that much more colorful: Nicholas Payton on trumpet, Joel Ross on vibes, and guitarists Kurt Rosenwinkel and Peter Bernstein.

---

Matthew Shipp – The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp (September 2023, Mahakala)

Matthew Shipp has recorded so much music across four decades that he long ago became uncategorizable and undefinable. Yet, no improvising artist seems to have such a knack for releasing music that suddenly seems to put him into focus. In 2013, he released Piano Sutras, a solo piano record that seemed to focus his agenda but also to summarize a century of of the vocabulary of American music. There has been plenty of other great music from Shipp in the decade following that, but nothing as distinct and concentrated as this new one — another solo piano recital of relatively short pieces.

All of the influences float through the playing, from Waller and Earl Hines up to Thelonius Monk and Ahmad Jamal, then through to Cecil Taylor. But Shipp has incorporated this history into a language all his own. He is probably improvising all of this music, but the lyrical and logical motion of “That Vibration” makes it sound beautifully composed and developed. “Tune Into It” begins as a whispered tone poem and opens up with Shipp pulling at his clusters of sound, leaving silence, then slipping into lovely harmony all over again. A tune that sounds as intimidating as “Bulldozer Poetics” is a cascade of gorgeous overtones that shimmers with the piano strings buzzing against each other harmoniously.

Two of the tracks include the word “jazz” in the title, which is not uncommon for Shipp — an avant-garde-ist who seems comfortable with many elements of the tradition. On “Jazz Emotions”, Shipp improvises without the usual jazz chord changes but plays with a heap of swing. “Jazz Frequency” is the longest track on The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp, and it crosses a wide landscape of methods but settles into a section a few minutes in featuring a stride-ish walking bass line. “The” evokes the impressionistic jazz piano of Bill Evans or Paul Bley, shifting from gorgeous voicings in the piano’s treble register to a series of arpeggiated figures and resonant chords.

Again, the intrinsic nature of the piano is explored, with strings reverberating in feeling-filled overtones. But it is not the jazz-ness of this music that defines (or limits) it. It is given shape, boundaries, and power by Matthew Shipp’s unique distillation of “free” improvising and a highly disciplined history. Most of the music here uses elements of atonality, yes, but it has the loveliness of careful (if spontaneously discovered) form. It’s one of Shipp’s best.

---

SLUGish Ensemble – In Solitude (September 2023, Slow & Steady)

This is the third recording by a Bay Area ensemble led by multi-reed player Steve Lugerner. It sounds like little else that’s out there: moody and earthy even as it uses synthesizer and electric guitar, funky but orchestral in how it deploys its sounds. For example, “Portola” starts with bass clarinet and acoustic bass playing a low lick in octaves, only to have that line taken on by piano and flute as the rest of the band starts playing insistent, slow triplets over the bass line to contrapuntal glory. It grooves, but as the band builds up different layers of sound, it sounds less like like modern hip-hop or 1970s funk and more like a potent, throbbing heartbeat over which a baritone saxophone serves up a blues melody.

Though they have a leader, the band never sound like it favors a star soloist — all the players shine (I adore how pianist Javier Santiago and guitarist Justin Rock fly up out of the full band sound on “La Bica”, and “Juanita” provides a wonderful forum for Steve Blum on an analog synth, snaking above an acoustic rhythm section) and mostly the album leans into the full group’s sound, which avoids sounding particularly like “jazz” in favor of music seems like it could accompany a film or suit your long car ride through an open plain. Tune into the closing track, “Myra”, where jazz harmonies star, yes, but you get the sense that the guys behind Donald Fagen on recent Steely Dan tours are just going off on a delicious tangent.

---

Kait Dunton – Keyboards (July 2023, Real & Imagined)

Kait Dunton is a Los Angeles-area pianist with an infectious joy in her hands. This trio record showcases her playing piano, Rhodes, organ, Wurlitzer, analog synth, and Mellotron — if cats were playing them in the 1970s, then she is grooving them here over electric bass (Sean Hurley) and funky drums (Jake Reed). Dunton is making music that shamelessly channels bands like Stuff — the incredible New York crew featuring Richard Tee, Steve Gadd, Eric Gale, and others — and there is no shame in that. If you think the music is derivative, then you are missing the point.

This is the kind of soul-stirring music that sat beneath a thousand classic records from the mid-1960s through the 1980s, and Dunton uses these vintage sounds to fire up new melodies and flights of fun. The production and playing borrow from some of the best and coolest music ever made, which is music that has gone a bit into hiding in the last 20 years. It’s not smooth jazz but something more like genuine instrumental soul. I feature it here because there is something precious in this kind of unpretentious but deeply felt playing. I predict you will love it and find it nourishing because every note pops with sensation.

---

Jeremy Udden – Wishing Flower (October 2023, Sunnyside)

Jeremy Udden has been playing all over, teaching, and leading several bands for two decades. His association with this rhythm section (Ben Monder’s guitar, Jorge Roeder on bass, drummer Ziv Ravitz) is long-standing, and the relaxed vibe of Wishing Flower is hard to resist. “1971”, for example, has a loping power that is as funky as a soul record, and “Car Radio” pops and bobs like an old Chevy. “Fade Into You” puts the fat sound of Roeder’s acoustic bass out front for a moody exercise that lets Monder lean into his overdrive, though quietly, and reminds you that melody has to lift any good song.

You might reasonably ask what makes this release different from a hundred other saxophone+rhythm section jazz releases in 2023. First, despite the instrumentation and label, it feels more like contemporary (if instrumental) indie-rock than “jazz” — with guitar colors as much as chording and a certain focus on building compelling energy. Second, this is the first use of a Lyricon (a synthesizer controlled by a wind interface) I have ever heard that is artful, subtle, and brilliantly integrated with the band. Udden plays alto and Lyricon in artful combination, coaxing impressionist, expressionist, human sounds from both. What a quietly and powerfully feeling album this is — “jazz” for the days when you need every note to count.

---

Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz – Ex Machina (September 2023, Pi)

Steve Lehman has made riveting New Jazz for trios and quartets, for hip-hop collaborations, and his octet. Here, finally, is a vanguard composer writing for and playing with a “big band”, if you will. The ONJ is a French 15-piece band designed for playing progressive music that combines wild structures, electronics, and improvisation. As on some prior Lehman recordings, we can hear the otherworldly “spectral harmonies” created by compositions that exploit specific overtones on particular instruments in combination with computer programming and the possibilities of electronic sound. Frédéric Maurin, the ONJ’s director, also contributes composing.

The bulk of the improvisation comes from Lehman and his octet members, Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet) and Chris Dingman. Dingman’s vibes act as a critical element throughout, bridging the spectral shimmer of the rest of the band to one of the sounds of classic jazz. “Chimera” puts Dingman out front, both setting up an irresistible pulse and soloing like a new-century Lionel Hampton, yet he is equally critical to “Alchimie”, which mainly features the ensemble in through-written but pulsing action.

There are also spots where this collaboration is quieter and gentler to strong effect. “Speed-Freeze” is a two-part suite that takes its time, beginning with an intriguing atmosphere, layering in trombone improvisation leavened by a nervous Frank Zappa-esque mallet percussion lick, and then turning up the intensity with a funk groove and long held-tone spectral crescendos. Perhaps the most arresting track is “39”, which immediately features Lehman’s alto saxophone amidst electronics and a shifting, polyrhythmic groove. Because his composing is so distinctive, it is easy to overlook Lehman’s horn sound (focused, sharp) and time as an improviser, which glides in an anxious push-pull way. Ex Machina may be the most complete and compelling expression of what makes Steve Lehman daring and excellent.

---

Darius Jones – FluXkit Vancouver (its suite but sacred) (September 2023, Saltern/Universal)

A four-part composition/improvisation commissioned by Western Front, the Vancouver center for multidisciplinary experimentation in art, this is the alto saxophonist’s first recording of writing for strings (with his alto and Gerald Cleaver’s drums integral to the whole). The result is breathtaking. At times, the strings play the notation “straight” as a classical chamber group, but we also hear the six voices all improvising at once. What makes everything work throughout is the thrilling melodic material provided by Jones and his powerful sound.

It is hard to single out one of the four movements or any single moment, but the last piece, “Damon and Pythias”, is the most gorgeous writing of Jones’s career. The sense of play from “Zubot” is intact, with all six players sounding like a wheel within a mesmerizing wheel. It is incredible to add that this music was part of a creative partnership with a graphic artist and a poet as well. But even the music, alone, stands as a tribute to the creative process, to life-affirming dialogue in the arts, and is among the best music in Darius Jones’s career.

---

Kris Davis and Diatom Ribbons – Live at the Village Vanguard (September 2023, Pyroclastic)

Kris Davis’ finest previous recording may have been 2019’s Diatom Ribbons, where she challenged herself to incorporate hip-hop, rock, and spoken word elements into a set of performances featuring performers that were her improvisatory equals: drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, guitarists Nels Cline and Marc Ribot, bassist Trevor Dunn, and Val Jeanty on turntables, among others. This live recording from the famed basement temple of jazz brings back Carrington, Jeanty, and Dunn and adds the sterling playing of guitarist Julian Lage — a band equipped to work across styles.

Again, Davis works with spoken word recordings of her heroes — “VW” features a herky-jerky theme around the words of Sun Ra, and “Bird Call Blues” finds Jeanty layering various sampled and turntable sounds with birdlike percussion, including the voice of pianist Paul Bley talking about the genius of Charlie Parker. But this band has many gears. “Alice in the Congo” by Ronald Shannon Jackson is rock solid, with heraldic piano and searing guitar keeping up with a cooking rhythm section.

Geri Allen’s “The Dancer” uses pointillistic subtlety and a loping groove to seduce. “Brainfeel” is even more achingly lovely, and “Endless Columns” is a tone poem that shifts from collective conversation to a pair of solos propelled by a gorgeous set of harmonic changes into a swaying ballad with Brazilian flavor. To bring this column full circle, I must mention the two versions of his “Dolores” that both include WOW  improvisation from Lage. Music this up-to-the-minute is a great summary of what “jazz” means these days.

---