release date: 24.02.2023 on Jazzland Recordings
Since forming in 2018 RYMDEN has established itself as one of the leading piano trios to ever emerge from the Nordic Jazz scene. All three members bring with them long-confirmed and lauded histories as innovators in jazz: Berglund and Öström via the Esbjörn Svensson Trio and their own projects (Tonbruket and Magnus Öström Group respectively); Wesseltoft via his New Conception of Jazz and other projects.
Nurture The Child / Challenge The Adult features immersive and thought-provoking original contemporary jazz by a quartet of highly acclaimed musicians, led by guitarist Harry Christelis. Due out on 17th Feb 2023 on LP, CD and digital formats via new label, Clonmell Jazz Social.
Guitarist Ari Joshua announces the release of his latest album, Meeting of The Minds, and it is due out on February 9th, 2023 via Music Factory Records.
Ari Joshua joins forces with Billy Martin on drums, John Medeski on keyboards, and Jason Fraticelli (Cyro Baptista, Matisyahu) on bass, in order to create this stellar new collection.
I first learned of the extraordinary pianist, accordionist and composer Ben Rosenblum from the late Frank Kimbrough who was one of his mentors at Juilliard. I was lucky enough to work with Ben on Kites & Strings, the acclaimed 2020 debut of his band Nebula Project. The group’s wide-ranging follow-up, A Thousand Pebbles, is out February 10, 2023 via One Trick Dog. Album Release Concert March 2, 2023 at Smalls, NYC
Built upon Rosenblum’s working trio with bassist Marty Jaffe and drummer Ben Zweig, Nebula Project features a brilliant constellation of improvisers who are also esteemed band leaders, composers and educators: trumpeter Wayne Tucker, guitarist Rafael Rosa, and reed expert Jasper Dutz, along with new addition Xavier Del Castillo on tenor sax and flute.
Samuel Rohrer releases Codes Of Nature on 2LP & DL on Arjuna Music on the 10th February 2023.
Samuel Rohrer’s newest solo album, Codes of Nature, shows the artist making yet more refinements and additions to an already rich catalog of musical ideas. Though he has excelled in collaborative projects with
Two giants of the Japanese avant-garde – pianist Satoko Fujii and guitarist Otomo Yoshihide – meet for the first time on Perpetual Motion, out February 9, 2023 via Ayler Records.
Recorded live at the Pit Inn in Tokyo, the concert was the first time these acclaimed musicians had performed together. There’s an immediate chemistry between these two intrepid shapers of sound.
Uptown on Mardi Gras Day, due out February 3, 2023 via Troubadour Jass Records, features guest appearances by Branford Marsalis, Marvin “Smitty” Smith and Glen David Andrews, performing classics by Professor Longhair, The Meters and Willie Tee !
“The Uptown Jazz Orchestra fills every inch of the room with a joyous noise.” – Michael Elliott, PopMatters
“The UJO sound [combines] the dance-first sensibility of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band crossed with Count Basie’s early riff bands and post-1952 ‘New Testament’ orchestras [and] the sophisticated dialects of Ellington, Mingus, Coltrane and Kenny Kirkland.” – Ted Panken, DownBeat
release date: 27.01.2023 on Traumton
Frederik Köster‘s band Die Verwandlung [The Transformation] has been playing together for ten years, and with each album the award-winning musicians (various Jazz Echos, New German Jazz Prize, WDR Jazz Prize) surprise with new sound variation. In 2018 the quartet amazed listeners with their spectacular orchestra production Homeward Bound Suite and in 2020 on Golden Age they presented unique fusions of acoustic virtuosity and clever electronica aesthetics. The album was longlisted for the German Record Critics’ Award and received a lot of media response.
Tomas Hallonsten releases Monolog on CD / MC / DL via Thanatosis Produktion on the 27th January 2023.
The album started out as a Mark Hollis-influenced project; gradually the music morphed and now it’s an album treading territories adjacent to the music of Francis Bebey, Mamman Sani, Hailu Mergia and Alice Coltrane.
“A serial collaborator on Sweden’s jazz and experimental scenes, the trumpeter used enforced isolation to down his horn and pick up a drum machine, improvising over its rhythms with Hammond organ and antique synths to get as close to the feel of a live band jamming as he could, ‘Monolog’ being the utterly wonderful result.
Hallonsten has Jimi Tenor’s knack of flirting with kitsch and creating oddball springy funk on the like of ‘Earth’ and ‘Go Ashram Go’, the latter ending with a beautiful piano part worthy of Ryuichi Sakamoto. Most charming of all is his winning way with melodies, best displayed on ‘In Clouds (Pt. 1)’ with its irresistibly hummable vocal refrain: a veritable cherry atop an album as indulgently fun to listen to as it fells like it was to make.”
Paul Clarke, DJ Mag
Good Days is the highly acclaimed ensemble, Beats & Pieces Big Band’s third studio album release. Out on Friday 27th January 2023 in CD and digital formats on the Efpi Records label.
“Heirs to the eclectic big-band traditions of Loose Tubes, they make their own sounds from many styles” – The Guardian
“A return to the idea that contemporary jazz for big band can still generate the kind of direct impact more associated with rock and pop music, but without undermining its essential craft and sophistication” – Jazzwise
“An irresistible energy, powered by Cottrell’s sly way of investing the familiar chords of jazz with a startling new energy… pleasingly ambiguous, hectic and calm at once” – The Telegraph
“Beats & Pieces has little to do with big band as we know it and rather offered up a madhouse of sharps, flats, and contusions… I couldn’t be happier” – Rochester City Newspaper
