Volume 25 Issue 7 - April 2020

Let Your Honesty Shine – The Simon Project
Heidi Lange
Independent (music.apple.com)
!!
Talented jazz
vocalist and
professor Heidi
Lange’s newest
release is a pleasant
modern jazz take on
famed singer-songwriter
Paul Simon’s
music, mixing in
elements of pop and rock to create a unique
whole. With current jazz greats like Mark
Kieswetter on piano, Jordan O’Connor on
acoustic bass, Eric St-Laurent on guitars and
Ben Riley on drums, the album is a perfect
soundtrack for a rainy day, for contemplation
or relaxing. Lange’s voice is a balanced
combination of wispiness and depth, pulling
in the listener and invoking complete
focus on her.
Each track features a prominent piano
melody that blends in outstandingly with
Lange’s timbre and is further supported by
beautiful guitar riffs, a moving, yet calming,
drum rhythm and a sultry bass line. A
touching version of Bridge Over Troubled
Water is a definite highlight of the album,
as is the unique take on Dazzling Blue and
the captivating Another Galaxy. Standing
out from the rest of the tracks for its upbeat
tempo and slightly more driving melody and
rhythm is The Boy in the Bubble, also unique
for the fact that the entire band sounds the
most blended here, intricacies of each instrument
played out to create a cohesive but
dynamic whole. This is where the listener
can hear just how well these talents merge
together. For longtime fans of Paul Simon’s
work or for music fans interested in a
modern jazz sound, this album is a definite
recommendation.
Kati Kiilaspea
The Scrapper
John Sneider
Cellar Music CM072819 (cellarlive.com)
!!
In the same
way a plethora of
Canadian jazz fails
to reach our neighbours
to the south,
there are also many
American artists
that we are not
exposed to here.
This is why I was delighted to see trumpeter
and composer John Sneider’s first release
under his own name in over 20 years appear
on the Canadian Cellar Live label. Sneider’s
album The Scrapper fits in perfectly with
Cellar Live’s usual programming, which hosts
artists from both sides of the border who play
“timeless, swinging, heartfelt and resonant”
music, as their website states.
The core members of Sneider’s band
remain the same as on his last release
Panorama from 2000: John Hart on guitar,
Larry Goldings on organ and Andy Watson
on drums. It is the shared influences among
these veterans of the New York City scene
that give the group its contemporary yet
grounded sound. The tracks on the album
are a unified flow of originals by Sneider
and Goldings, small-group arrangements of
two Duke Ellington pieces, and tracks that
feature its guest artists: vocalist Andy Bey and
young trumpeter David Sneider. Bey contributes
a conversational rendition of Miles Davis’
classic Solar, and Sneider demonstrates he
shares his father’s mature yet playful compositional
style on the two-trumpet closer
Dinosaur Eggs. Overall, The Scrapper is an
excellent release that pays homage to the
tradition while still sounding current in 2020.
Sam Dickinson
Cast of Characters
Nick Finzer
Outside In Music OiM 2000
(nick-finzer.myshopify.com)
!!
With the release
of his new 14-song
concept recording,
respected trombonist,
producer
and educator,
Nick Finzer, has
pushed the creative
envelope into
new, vital and challenging emotional territory.
Long known as a formidable storyteller,
Finzer’s new opus is a musical exploration of
influential archetypes who are often common
to the human experience, e.g. inter-connections
with those individuals who inspire
us, disappoint us, break our hearts, support
us tirelessly and love us unconditionally.
Finzer’s stellar sextet includes Lucas Pino on
reeds, Alex Wintz on guitar, Glenn Zaleski
on piano, Dave Baron on bass and Jimmy
Macbride on drums.
There is no gratuitous soloing on this
project, but there is intense and emotional,
post-bop group exploration in which all of
the members have a voice. On the evocative
opener, A Sorcerer, the Ellingtonia is palpable.
The sextet is pristine and swinging, gliding
over the complex musical motifs with skill,
insight and taste, and Pino’s inspired sax solo
is full of longing and youthful joy. Another
outstanding track is Evolution of Perspective
– a sobering introspection that bounces back
with a gymnastic, rapid-fire solo from Finzer,
as well as equally superb, vibrant solos from
the ensemble.
Other standouts include Patience, Patience
– a haunting ballad perfectly parenthesized
by Zaleski’s luminous piano work, and
Venus – a sensuous rhapsody, silkier than
the finest satin. With this thought-provoking
recording, Finzer guides the listener on a
journey through seemingly chaotic, quantum
entanglement, which eventually morphs into
our sense of self as so eloquently put by the
title of the last offering in the cycle, We’re
More than the Sum of Our Influences.
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke
Air
Asmus Tietchens; Dirk Serries
New Wave of Jazz nwoj 0026
(newwaveofjazz.bandcamp.com)
! ! Not lighter than
air, but certainly
as omnipresent,
Air is a singular
instance of what
could be termed
brazen (un)ambient
music. Belgian Dirk
Serries improvised
sounds on accordion, concertina, harmonica,
melodica and clarinet, which were then used
as source material manipulated, splintered
and sewn together again by the computers
and electronics of German composer Asmus
Tietchens. The result is a collection of six
tracks that challenge much more than
they soothe.
On a sequence like Air Akkordeon for
instance, as tremolo accordion reaches a
juddering crescendo that spreads over the
track like jam on toast, fragments of those
vibrations, treated by Tietchens’ computer,
are reflected mirror-like back into the mix,
moving with hints of aviary whistles that
hover alongside Serries’ initial tones, before
both glide away.
That type of scenario evolves throughout
the disc, as wafting clarinet quivers confront
Big Ben-like repetitive chiming or minimalist
concertina squeezes and/or harmonica
breaths mix with whispery vocal-like echoes
that ascend to ululating choral refrains.
Carefully layered through granular synthesis
and pitch manipulations, these congruent
tones transcend solo instrument-like resemblance,
to become mechanized or otherworldly-like
vibrations by the final Air
Klarinette 2. Becoming louder and more
diverse, the layers of interspaced oscillations
negate “real” or “treated” origins to become
almost symphonic with impressionistic
colourations.
Overall though, what’s also distinctive
about Tietchens’ and Serries’ program
is that kernels of impulsive audacity
and strength can be heard beneath the
unfolding ambience.
Ken Waxman
64 | April 2020 thewholenote.com