Euro Jazz Media Charts: Dezember 2019
Die letzte Auswahl des Jahres und mit dabei sind u.a. Shake Stew, Lumen Drones, Bill Laurance, Kirke Karja Quartet, ACRE, Signe Emmeluth Amoeba, Oya Sextett, High Definition Quartet, Dave Holland, Zakir Hussain, Chris Potter …
HERRING/WATSON/BARTZ: Bird at 100 (Smoke Sessions Records)
If Bird lives, this is the album! 3 of the best mainstream saxophonists backed by a stellar rhythm section for Bird’s tunes, standards as well as originals.
LUMEN DRONES: Umbra (Hubro)
OYA SEXTETT: Live (Signal and Sound Records)
Swedish pianist Sebastian Bergström in a spirit rejoice. Joyful and brilliant executed, he and his band bring new life to the songs of South Africans like Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor and Louis Moholo.
MALUBA ORCHESTRA: Maluba (Stunt Records)
A strong contender for the Danish Release of 2019. The YouTube video is from one of their first public performances (if not the first). Great compositions and great soloists pointing towards a bright future without dropping the jazz tradition
REOLÔ: Andre Sida (ta:lik)
SIGNE EMMELUTH AMOEBA: Chimaera (Øra Fonogram)
We can take the problem in any direction, we must recognize that the Danish alto saxophonist and composer Signe Emmeluth is a great musician who has a strong sense of collective, narrative and whose energetic colors are generous. This second record contains all that. Well, it contains… let’s say it explodes instead!
DAVE HOLLAND/ZAKIR HUSSAIN/CHRIS POTTER: Good Hope (Edition Records)
ACRE: Different Constellation (Autrecords)
KIRKE KARJA QUARTET: Wrong Kind of Paradise (Kirke Karja 2019)
HIGH DEFINITION QUARTET: Dziady (Anaklasis)
A fascinating new album by the young Polish pianist and visionary composer Piotr Orzechowski “Pianohooligan”. A musical re-imagining of the second part of the messianic drama „Forefathers” (an ancient feast summoning the ghosts) by the great Polish romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798 – 1855). It is a sort of suite, in which jazzy parts of the High Definition Quartet (Mateusz Śliwa – ts, ss; Piotr Orzechowski – p, Alan Wykpisz – b, Grzegorz Pałka – dr) are juxtaposed with electronic sets offered by ambient masters William Basinski and Robert Rich (USA), Christian Fennesz (Austria) and Poland’s own Krzysztof Knittel and Igor Boxx (from the duet Skalpel). A spiritual journey into the human soul.
BILL LAURANCE: Live At The Philharmonie Cologne (Jazzline)
KRISTINA KOVALYOVA: Hristya v namysti (Hristya v namysti)
LUMEN DRONES: Umbra (Hubro)
Lumen Drones is doing the Norwegian folk music accessible to all the people of the world, and something better and more modern than what this trio is doing to further develop Norwegian folk music, is almost impossible to do. And they not even play the traditional songs – everything is written by the trio! A gem of a recording!