{"id":5298,"date":"2015-08-18T17:25:44","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T17:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5298"},"modified":"2015-08-18T17:25:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-18T17:25:44","slug":"now-playing-new-forthcoming-cds-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/18\/now-playing-new-forthcoming-cds-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Now Playing (New & Forthcoming CDs)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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photo: Joshua Blumenfeld<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nFred Hersch\u00a0Solo<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>(Palmetto, out Sept. 4): In some ways, it\u2019s remarkable that pianist Fred Hersch is with us to celebrate his 60th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday, which this new solo CD marks. Hersch\u2019s brilliant multimedia piece, \u201cMy Coma Dreams,\u201d recalled and recast the two months he spent in a coma in 2008, the result of pneumonia run rampant, which followed a terrifying bout of dementia caused by the AIDS virus he has battled for 25 years. Five years ago, I sat the kitchen of Hersch\u2019s SoHo loft. \u201cPeople tell me that my playing is somehow deeper now since my recovery,\u201d he told me. \u201cI can\u2019t judge whether that\u2019s true or not. But I\u2019ve always been determined to be my own man at the piano. And now, I feel even more of a desire to just be Fred.\u201d It is true. And being Fred means being one of the most distinctive and complete pianists in jazz. All that comes clear\u2014perhaps more so than on even Hersch\u2019s previous solo CDs\u2014with \u201cFred Hersch Solo.\u201d
\nLuciana Souza<\/strong> Speaking in Tongues<\/em> (Sunnyside, out 9\/18): Born and raised in Brazil in an eminently musical family, Souza has never fully lost touch with her roots. But at 49, having spent half her life in the U.S., she has come to embody an aesthetic within jazz that knows no stylistic or geographic borders. She has also brought a finely honed ear for poetry and literature to her work; she can not only lend deep meaning to a lyric, she knows how to find an exalted lyric where others might not look. Here, Souza works in a worldly collaborative of improvisers: guitarist Lionel Loueke, who grew up in Benin; Swiss-born harmonica virtuoso Gr\u00e9goire Maret; bassist Massimo Biolcati and drummer Kendrick Scott. Some listeners will hear this music as fusion, and consider Souza\u2019s wordless vocals as scat: But these terms trivialize and misunderstand what\u2019s going on here, which are moments of communion and creation based solely on sounds. Good as those wordless vocals are, Souza shines as always when she turns to great lyrics, as she does on two songs, drawn from Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cBook of Longing,\u201d and set to her original music.
\nLiberty Ellman<\/strong> Radiate<\/em> (Pi Recordings): Guitarist Liberty Ellman has been a mainstay during the past decade or so of New York\u2019s creative music scene, most notably as a key player in Zooid, the small ensemble led by saxophonist and flutist Henry Threadgill. Threadgill\u2019s music is about the most important and challenging stuff around, and it employs stringed instruments in unusual and critical ways. Ellman has grown into that sound in remarkable fashion, and Threadgill\u2019s Zooid music has grown in remarkable fashion due to Ellman\u2019s understanding of Threadgill\u2019s aims and his ability to articulate its language. None of which should distract from Ellman\u2019s own catalog as a leader. \u201cRadiate\u201d features a sextet that includes one Threadgill alum, Jose Davila (on trombone and tuba) and some of New York\u2019s most compelling musicians (such as trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson and alto saxophonist Steve Lehman). Like so many of his colleagues, Ellman succeeds with his own music not so much because he has internalized the concepts of Threadgill and others, not because he is adept at slippery rhythms and sonic complexity\u2014these things are givens\u2014but because he is a composer, with compelling ideas of his own to share and a circle of friends who can do them justice.
\nC\u00e9cile McLorin Salvant<\/strong> For One to Love<\/em> (Mack Avenue, Sept. 4): C\u00e9cile McLorin Salvant first suggested herself as an exception to the rule\u2014the filed of jazz vocals is barren or wanting\u2014when she arrived mostly as an unknown at the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition, flashed her exceptional talent, and won. On her debut CD, \u201cWomanChild,\u201d in 2013, she lent surprising currency to songs mostly written during the first three decades of the 20th<\/sup> century. At Jazz at Lincoln Center\u2019s Rose Theater last year, before an audience drawn primarily by a collective quartet of established jazz stars such as drummer Jack DeJohnette and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, Ms. Salvant stole the night with her opening set. Now 25, Ms. Salvant delivers yet further on this promise with this new CD, which sprinkles complex and sophisticated original compositions with well-chosed repertoire and flashes exalted skills tempered by uncanny restraint.
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Fred Hersch\u00a0Solo\u00a0(Palmetto, out Sept. 4): In some ways, it\u2019s remarkable that pianist Fred Hersch is with us to celebrate his 60th\u00a0birthday, which this new solo CD marks. Hersch\u2019s brilliant multimedia piece, \u201cMy Coma Dreams,\u201d recalled and recast the two months he spent in a coma in 2008, the result of pneumonia run rampant, which followed … <\/p>\n

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