Merry & Bright, drummer Jeff Hamilton’s holiday album featuring his acclaimed trio with pianist Tamir Hendelman and bassist Jon Hamar, is out November 19, 2021 via Capri Records.
The swinging album showcases Hamilton‘s favorite Christmas tunes selected from his memories growing up in a family where everyone gathered around the piano at holiday time to sing in four-part harmony.
release date: 19.11.2021 via Rune Grammofon
Hedvig Mollestad must surely be one of the hardest working musicians on the Norwegian music scene at the moment, with “Tempest Revisited” being her third album in a mere 18 months, all at a consistently high artistic level. Her first solo album, “Ekhidna” (2020), received a Spellemannpris (Norwegian Grammy), appeared on several jazz and rock best of the year lists and got her into Downbeat´s “25 for the future” selection.
release date: 12.11.2021 via Laika Records
Martin Wind is one of a few German jazz musicians that have been able to establish themselves and remain on the New York jazz scene. My Astorian Queen is a heartfelt thank you note to “this city and its welcoming artistic community in general, and some very special human beings in particular, that have guided and formed me over the last quarter of a century.” With this album he celebrates a 25 years in NYC, with his trusted quartet featuring Scott Robinson, Bill Mays and Matt Wilson.
release date: 29.10.2021 via Pyroclastic Records
Searching for the Disappeared Hour, due out October 29, 2021 via Pyroclastic Records, finds the two acclaimed artists exploring notions of time through evocative original compositions and thrilling improvisations
“[Courvoisier and Halvorson are] two of New York’s most idiosyncratic and distinctive improvisers… [Their debut recording] Crop Circles is deeply chamber-like in its deft, interactive intimacy.” – Peter Margasak, Downbeat
“This meeting of two of the brightest minds on the edgier side of jazz today produces music that’s astonishing both in its fluency and ceaseless ingenuity.” – S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!
To paraphrase the late Douglas Adams, “Time is an illusion. Pandemic time doubly so.” On their brilliant new duo album, Searching for the Disappeared Hour, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson make up for lost time with an hour’s worth of kaleidoscopic beauty and startling invention.
release date: 29.10.2021 via Destiny Records
Local Folklore—to be released by Destiny Records on October 29, 2021—takes listeners down familiar roads but ends up in fresh destinations, each with its own inhabitants, lessons, and stories to tell.
“The guitar playing of Charlie Rauh and Cameron Mizell is both sensitive and virtuosic, weaving together haunting phrases with precision and grace.” – The Museum of Americana
release date: 22.10.2021 via Crammed Discs
Crammed Discs release Redrawn Figures 1 and Redrawn Figures 2 on LP & Digital on the 22nd of October 2021.
Following the release of Aksak Maboul’s acclaimed Figures double album (in mid-2020), fifteen artists have revisited songs from the legendary experimental pop band’s ‘comeback’ opus (mini-biography below).
These diverse, colorful interpretations range from simple remixes to reconstructions and cover versions, or a combination of all of these. They’re now ready to be released on two separate, limited-edition vinyl LPs, as well as on two digital albums.
release date: 22.10.2021 via Attaboygirl Records
JUNO Award-winning guitarist and oud master Gordon Grdina launches his new label Attaboygirl Records with a remarkable pair of inaugural releases, Pendulum and Klotski, due out October 22, 2021. Album download links are below.
Klotski is the studio debut of Square Peg, Grdina’s exploratory quartet featuring Grdina on guitar and oud, Mat Maneri on viola, Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Moog, and Christian Lillinger on drums. The album’s single, nearly hour-long piece moves through eight of these cellular pieces, each able to be initiated by any member of the group and bridged by captivating improvisations, vividly blurring the lines between the written and the spontaneou
release date: 22.10.2021 via Attaboygirl Records
JUNO Award-winning guitarist and oud master Gordon Grdina launches his new label Attaboygirl Records with a remarkable pair of inaugural releases, Pendulum and Klotski, due out October 22, 2021. Album download links are below.
Pendulum is Grdina’s third solo album and his second composed for classical guitar and oud. It intricately explores the harmonic possibilities of the guitar and oud in ways that bridge their Western and Arab
release date: 15.10.2021 via Ridgeway Records
On his 15th release as a leader, Simon offers up gorgeous interpretations of classic and original tunes delivered with exceptional artistry and finesse. Recorded at Oakland’s Piedmont Piano Company on his 50th birthday in 2019, it’s a ravishing portrait of one of jazz’s most eloquent improvisers.
release date: 15.10.2021 via Crammed Discs
Always ready to expand their scope and blur the genre borders, the inventive, revered French avant-rock band Aquaserge have decided to tackle the field of contemporary classical music from the mid-20th century, in a special project which pays tribute to four major atypical figures: Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), György Ligeti (1923-2006), Edgard Varèse (1883-1965) and Morton Feldman (1926-1987).
