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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Recent Listening: Pelt, Vitchev, Feather

January 22, 2016 by Doug Ramsey

baby listeningContinuing the struggle to keep up, the Rifftides staff once again plunges into the accumulation of more-or-less-recent albums and selects a few to tell you about. The stacks you see below include the 50 or so review copies of CDs that have come in since January 1. Keeping up seems to be out of the question.

Incoming CD stacks

Jeremy Pelt, #Jiveculture (High Note)

Following his 2002 debut recording, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt quicklyPelt Jiveculture worked his way into the front rank of a new generation of jazz players. Now with ten CDs of his own and dozens with other leaders, Pelt continues to capitalize on technical skill, a tone of penetrating warmth, and subtle humor centered in rhythmic phrasing. His new collection’s centerpiece is bassist Ron Carter’s “Einbahnstrasse,” which debuted 50 years ago in an essential album by pianist Bobby Timmons with Carter, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and drummer Jimmy Cobb. In Pelt’s new CD the piece is as joyful and—with its unorthodox four-bar bridge—as surprising as ever. In the rhythm section with pianist Danny Grissett and drummer Billy Drummond, Carter is powerful in time and tone, his note placement even more incisive than when he was with Miles Davis at the time of the Timmons album. Grissett and Drummond are impressive throughout.

#Jiveculture has Pelt’s compelling playing on fast pieces including “Einbahnstrasse” and his compositions “Baswald’s Place” and “Desire.” It also has the sensitivity of his ballad work. His soloing in Cole Porter’s “Dream Dancing,” Dave Grusin’s “Love Like Ours” and his own “Akua” are examples of coherence, restraint and the primacy of melody in improvisation and composition. In his 40th year, Pelt is a master of all those elements. This album—odd title and all—is likely to be seen as a milestone in his career.

Hristo Vitchev, In Search Of Wonders (First Orbit Sounds)

Eight tracks into this double CD set, guitarist Vitchev and his rhythm section leap into a piece Vitchev CD Covercalled “Old Theme.” It is not the first sign of unabated vitality in the collection; Vitchev, drummer Mike Shannon, bassist Dan Robbins and pianist Weber Iago have elevated moments throughout. “Old Theme,” “The Invisible Stairway,” “It May Backfire” and the joyful “Without Words As The Full Moon Shines” provide contrast to the relaxation, lyricism and air of nostalgia that characterize much of the album. A Bulgarian who settled in the San Francisco Bay area, Vitchev has an even guitar touch, creates long improvised lines and has a compositional style that encompasses Latin, Eastern European and post-Coltrane jazz elements. The moments when the quartet seems intent on making background music don’t last long.

Lorraine Feather, Flirting With Disaster (Jazzed Media)L Feather Disaster

In the notes for her new album, Lorraine Feather writes that the nature of the project suggested the title; “Any time you fall in love, you’re flirting with disaster.” She fulfills that premise’s possibilities in eleven songs with her lyrics. The emotional range runs from the risk implied in the title tune and “Off Center” to the slightly aggressive vibe of “Be My Muse,” the au courant hipness of “I’d Be Down With That,” the lyricism of “Feels Like Snow” and the declaration of unconditional love in “The Staircase.”

Up the steep and narrow stair
We will slowly climb.
I never said I loved you,
But I knew it all the time.

As usual, her work is seasoned with dashes of irony, subtle humor and sensitivity to the romance, heartbreak and comedy of human failings. She sings clearly, in tune, with good time and, obviously, an understanding of the lyrics. Ms.Feather worked with talented musicians who have collaborated with her as co-writers and accompanists on several previous albums. They include pianists Russell Ferrante, Dave Grusin and Shelly Berg; guitarists Grant Geissman and Eddie Arkin, drummer Greg Field and the intriguing violinist Charlie Bisharat.

More recent-listening reviews coming soon

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Comments

  1. Mark Mohr says

    January 22, 2016 at 6:29 pm

    You and your hardworking staff are obviously inundated with new releases. I feel your pain. Please feel free to send me all of the CD’s you don’t have time to listen to.

    Anything I can do to help, just let me know.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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Doug’s Picks

Monday Book Recommendation: Lilian Terry’s Jazz Friends

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Monday Recommendation: Oscar Peterson Plays 10 Composers

Oscar Peterson Plays (Verve) In this five-CD reissue, the formidable pianist plays pieces by ten composers who dominated American popular music for decades. Peterson had bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Barney Kessel, succeeded by Herb Ellis. It’s the trio that made Peterson famous with Jazz At The Philharmonic and–by way of the 10 albums reproduced […]

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Monday Recommendation: DIVA At 25

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra 25th Anniversary Project (ArtistShare) It has been a quarter of a century since Buddy Rich’s manager and relief drummer Stanley Kay found himself conducting a band whose drummer was young Sherrie Maricle. Intrigued by her playing, Kay set out to find whether there were other women jazz musicians of comparable talent. […]

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Monday Recommendation, Keith Jarrett Trio: After The Fall

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette, After The Fall (ECM) In 1998 Keith Jarrett was emerging from a siege of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that had sidelined him for two years. As he felt better, he was uncertain how completely his piano skill and endurance had returned. He decided to test himself. He gathered his longtime […]

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Monday Recommendation: Gerard Kubik, Jazz Transatlantic

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Monday Recommendation: Magris In Miami

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More Doug's Picks

Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

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