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Claudia Acuña
En Este Momento
MARSALIS MUSIC 74946
AAAA
The Flatlands
Collective
Maatjes
CLEAN FEED 127
AAA
The word “maatjes”
has a double meaning
in Dutch, referring to
mates and a raw herring
dish that is a delicacy in
Holland. The title captures
the spirit of this ensemble, both its camaraderie
and essential Dutchness.
The Flatlands Collective is a quintet of
Chicagoans convened by Dutch saxophonist
Jorrit Dijkstra. In the album’s liner notes,
Dijkstra explains that while American music has
impacted his own since he was a kid, that influence
has been filtered through The Netherlands’
peculiar take on jazz. The sidemen he’s selected
are sufficiently attuned to improvisational developments
on both sides of the Atlantic that they
aren’t thrown by his everything on one plate
compositional approach. Whether it’s reimagining
Terry Riley-style minimalism as march
music on “In D Flat Minor,” laying down some
Although she’s toured widely
since releasing 2004’s
Luna, it’s taken Claudia
Acuña a few years to complete
the recording of her
new material, some of which
was inspired by a trip to
Tulum, Mexico, more than two years ago, where
she wrote the beginnings of the hauntingly elegant
song of the same name.
In fact, the whole album works as a tour of
Latin American musical heritage, as interpreted
by Acuña’s emotive and soulful alto. As her
voice alternates from dreamy to dark, her influences
pull from classic Chilean folk, tango,
bolero as well as from the deeply rooted working
relationships with pianist Jason Lindner and
guitarist Juancho Herrera.
Opening the album with a pair of classic folk
songs (“El Cigarrito” and “Te Recuerdo
Amanda”) by Víctor Jara, a politically charged
popular singer in Chile who was executed while
singing an ode to the country’s toppled populist
party, sets a pensive tone for the next 45 minutes
of music. The songs, which have been covered
by American folk artists including Pete Seeger
and Joan Baez, get back to their roots under the
warm blanket of Acuña’s intoxicating voice.
Her music, though, connotes more than beauty.
The emotions inspired by political and social
issues like the war in Iraq or a loss of civil liberties
in other countries
come to the surface of
Acuña’s unglossed tone
and Lindner’s angry wave
of notes in their original,
“That’s What They Say.”
Later, her unwavering
alto imbues “Cuando
Vuelva A Tu Lado” with
an updated take on the particular
feminine strength
that its composer Maria
Grever (one of the first famous female Mexican
composers) conveyed.
The force of so much nuanced drama never
overshadows the essential roles played by
Acuña’s band, including Branford Marsalis,
who plays soprano on “Cuando Vuelva A Tu
Lado.” Meanwhile, Lindner’s choice of Rhodes
and Melotron give way to a soft groove that
piano alone wouldn’t quite achieve. The rest of
the rhythm section’s washed beats make
Acuña’s earthy voice that much more tenuous.
This album’s merit reaches beyond its exquisite
sound and into the realm of deep meaning.
Acuña has woven an important social history
out of the short stories these songs narrate.
—Jennifer Odell
En Este Momento: El Cigarrito; Te Recuerdo Amanda; Tulum;
That’s What They Say; El Derecho De Vivir En Paz; Contigo En
La Distancia; Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado; Vuelvo Al Sur; Sueño
Contigo; La Mentira (Se Te Olvida). (48:24)
Personnel: Claudia Acuña, vocals; Jason Lindner, piano,
Rhodes, Mellotron, organ; Juancho Herrera, guitar, mandolin;
Omer Avital, bass; Clarence Penn, drums, cajon, percussion.
»
Ordering info: marsalismusic.com
soulful Sun Ra worship on
“Scirocco Song” or negotiating
the abrupt shifts between disciplined,
downbeat swing passages
and episodes of agitated improvisation
on “Druil,” they render his
often challenging material with
vivid clarity.
The American Flatlanders
don’t just play Dijkstra’s tunes;
they inhabit them, bearing down
on a burner like “Phil’s Tesora”
with the all-for-one enthusiasm of real mates.
Dijkstra capitalizes on the band’s spirit by playing
a splendidly gnarled alto on that track, and
elsewhere his grainy, retro-futuristic electronics
contrast strikingly with the cleanly executed
horn charts. It adds up to a rewarding record by
a band with a singular identity. —Bill Meyer
Maatjes: Mission Rocker; Micro Mood; Partially Overdone;
Maatjes 1; Druil; Phil’s Tesora; The Gate; Maatjes 2; In D Flat
Minor; Scirocco Song. (62:39)
Personnel: Jorrit Dijkstra, alto saxophone, lyricon, analog synthesizer;
James Falzone, clarinet; Jeb Bishop, trombone; Fred
Lonberg-holm, cello, analog electronics; Jason Roebke, bass;
Frank Rosaly, drums, percussion.
Townhouse Orchestra
Belle Ville
CLEAN FEED 125
AAAA
Director David Lynch insists that his films be
released on DVD without chapter stops, thereby
preventing viewers from randomly accessing
scenes. On the one hand, this makes artistic
sense: Lynch’s films thrive on atmosphere,
which would be destroyed without being experienced
in their totality. But Lynch is also a master
at creating memorable and beautiful scenes that
last for mere moments, things of mystery worthy
of being explored out of context.
The monumental block of music represented
on the Townhouse Orchestra’s second release is
similar. Each of the two CDs contains a single
45-minute block of music, which rewards being
experienced as a whole. These four remarkably
attuned musicians spin an epic spontaneous narrative,
with breathtaking contrasts between disparate
segments. But some of those segments
are so striking on their own terms that an index
would help one to return and examine them in
greater detail.
The quartet—saxophonist Evan Parker, pianist
Sten Sandell, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and
drummer Paal Nilssen-Love—are all familiar
with one another, evidenced by the absence of
down time or meandering transitions in the double-disc
set. A dense whorl of four-part sound is
the default, but many of the highlights come from
smaller sub-units: the dark clouds conjured
around disc one’s 14-minute mark by Sandell’s
portentous left-hand hammering and Parker’s
eerily swooping tenor, complemented by Nilssen-
Love’s bowed cymbals, or two broad-shouldered
solo spots by Håker Flaten on disc two.
The scale of these improvisations can be
overwhelming, akin to staring at two huge
abstract murals aswarm with detail. It could
more accurately be described as a diptych, two
pieces similar in size and effect, at times echoing
and at others deviating from one another, rich on
their own, stunning in combination.
—Shaun Brady
Belle Ville: Disc 1—Belleville. (44:47); Disc 2—Villebelle. (45:10)
Personnel: Evan Parker, tenor saxophone; Sten Sandell,
piano; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums,
percussion.
» Ordering info: cleanfeed-records.com
Ordering info: cleanfeed-records.com
»
64 DOWNBEAT June 2009