This Is Book’s Music

ProbCause originally wanted to name this project Once A Week because “I wrote and recorded a new song, every week, for 10 weeks” and he selected some of the best tracks for an album. This is that album. Have a listen.

Spring Cleaning (35.3mb)

Anthony Bourdain is holding an essay contest where the winning essay will be published in the paperback edition of his new book, Medium Raw. As a foodie and someone who hopes to become a first-time author with a hip-hop cookbook (to find out more about this project, click here), it’s a chance to not only win, but for something I’ve written to be looked over by someone whose work I admire as a cook/chef and world traveler. It is something I would like to do, combine my love of music and food and utilize it as a means to travel across the United States and the world.

Click the banner above and if you like what I’ve written, please vote for me. My entry is here. Mahalo nui (thank you) for the support.

This album sounds more like a long-lost David Axelrod album circa 1969 than just a casual jazz album, not sure of it’s Aldo Romano‘s Italian sensibility or just having a different perspective on things. What I love about Origine (Dreyfuss) is its understand of space and pacing. One of the things I love about obscure Italian soundtracks is not only how distant (read “foreign”) it sounds, but how it seems to know what I want to hear, even though it has never met me. This is one of those albums that you wish every jazz fan knew about or owned. It will become the jazz album you will introduce as someone’s first entrance into jazz. This will become the fodder of hip-hop producers in twenty years. This is the sound of the magic in jazz you thought was lost.

Nancy Wilson.

Oleta Adams.

Sharon Jones.

These are the names I thought of as I listened to Rita Edmond sing on her album A Glance At Destiny (T.O.T.I.), and what I liked is that the track order was designed with the listener in mind. In hard rock and heavy metal, it is said that the album should be the song that kicks your ass. In hip-hop, it is said the album should start off with a banger. That applies here with Edmond’s cover of the jazz classic “Sunny”, and you feel the warmth and strength of the lyrics in her voice, never going too overboard. Her voice is controlled and that’s how the album is, everything is methodical, done with tender loving care. I bring this up because a lot of times it feels as if vocal jazz albums in the last few years are put together carelessly, and A Glance At Destiny is not a careless album. What makes this interesting is that she produced the album, so this is perhaps why this sounds like something she put together, and not something that is an interpretation of what the producer feels the artist wants.

What you hear is someone with talent and grace, who understands the songs and the important interaction between singer and musicians, and how to convey that into a proper sounding recording. If this is only a mere Glance, I’m ready to join her on her life’s mission.

CD, LP, digital “mix tape”, it doesn’t matter what the format is, but this has got to be one of the worst covers I have seen in ages. There’s intentionally funny, there’s questionably funny, and then there’s the big “WTF is this?” This would be the latter.

It’s credited to Jimmy Swag & The Almighty Gyvis. I’m not sure what a Gyvis is, there was a time I thought Jeru The Damaja was French. But look at the cover, with images taken from various sources. It looks like someone said “Drake face shot, here. Hat, here. Hand salute, here.” Nevermind the weird connotations the photo and the title may have, but it’s just hilarious. I know this is a generation that has grown up on music without covers, or we view covers as forum/profile avatars, but this is just flat out corny. Years ago this would’ve been laughed at, but I’d like to think those of you reading this have a sense of humor as well. The music on this may be good, but the cover makes me want to scratch my ass on the corner of a building, point at random people, and laugh. Let’s giggle, shall we?

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(You can listen to Salute Me by going to DatPiff.com.

Words like “warm” and “soothing” may be cliche for some, but when it comes to Kathryn Smith, it was the first words I could think of as I listened to With Every Breath I Take (self-released). Perhaps soothing and relaxing are more apt words, for while she is being promoted as a jazz vocalist, there are soul and folk sensibilities that I really like too, and as I began listening to this, I realized whose voice she reminded me of: Annie Lennox. When I became aware of Lennox, she had the carrot hair and did a song that was techno-pop, very 80′s. Yet in concert, she would “take it to church” and truly bring it home. There are those qualities in Smith, someone who can take a familiar song and make it feel as if you’re listening to it for the very first time, or someone who is able to bring the song to a new place. She puts the same amount of passion in a Duke Ellington song as she does in a Joni Mitchell song, and since Mitchell herself is a huge jazz fan, you might be able to sense the lineage between these songs, as if no boundaries exist and Smith is a carefully-selected interpreter.

To me, Smith sounds like someone who could sing any song from any style, era, or genre, that’s a non-issue. It’s all about the song, and having a voice that is able to take you to another time, or a place you’ve never been before. In other words, it’s moving. I’d like to see her challenge herself by doing songs out of her “selected genre”, turn different songs and place them in the jazz songbook as if they were inevitably meant to go there. Keep an eye and ear out for her.

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Here is an interesting collection of songs recorded by singer Joyce Cobb with the Michael Jefry Stevens Trio, which includes Jonathan Wires and Renardo Ward. The self-titled CD (Music Arts/Archer) is an album with a lot of bop and swing, mixing up jazz with some down home blues that will make you feel good. At times the power of Cobb’s voice seems to lose intensity as the album goes on, I’m not sure if it’s what I’m hearing or if I was losing interest. She’s not boring, but she’s not something I would want to listen to for a full album either. That can’t be said for Stevens, whose work I have been impressed with over the years and to be honest, this would have worked perfectly as an instrumental album with two vocalized songs thrown in for fun.

If you like Stevens, get this. If you love a good jazz/blues singer with compassion and warmth, you might find Cobb to be your chanteuse.

Takao Iwaki is a new musician to the jazz scene, and Introducing Takao Iwaki (White Sands) brings him in the same way people were blessed with the talents of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Pharoah Sanders. He plays with the kind of style that shows deep listening, this isn’t someone who sent in something by mail and said “I would like to learn how to play the sax”. His tone is great, and whether it’s a ballad like “White Sands” or something passionate like “Iwakisan”, you know you’re hearing someone who truly loves the music and his chosen instrument. Pianist Tadataka Unno will be someone to watch out for too, the way he plays is like a conversation with Iwaki you’re not supposed to listen on, but know that it will lead to a very moving discussion.

I was also highly impressed by the rhythm section of bassist David Wong and drummer Quincy Davis, both of whom have individual qualities but manage to play together as if they’ve been doing this since childhood. What’s the term, “brothers from another mother”? It’s like that, they have a conversation with each other that is not unlike any other rhythm section, but it’s their own and you’re thankful you’re getting a chance to hear them.

Introducing Takao Iwaki may very well be “straight ahead-jazz”, but sometimes a simple explanation is all you need to know about the musician and the music that he plays. Iwaki will be someone that you’ll hear about a lot in the 10′s, and no doubt Unno, Wong, and Davis will be doing their own thing along the way. If one wants to feel optimistic about jazz in this decade, look no further than this album for a positive answer.

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Ramona Gonzalez goes under the nom de plume Nite Jewel, and she has been writing and recording music towards a second album. Until then, she’s releasing a 6-song EP called Am I Real? (Gloriette), which will be released digitally on July 20th, and on vinyl August 16th. She will be doing a small tour as the EP makes itself known to the public, here are confirmed tour dates:
07/29 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex *
08/09 New York, NY Mercury Lounge #
08/10 Wilkes-Barre, PA Cafe Metropolis $
08/11 Allston, MA Great Scott %
08/12 New Haven, CT Cafe Nine &
08/13 Philadelphia, PA Kung Fu Necktie
08/14 Brooklyn, NY Glasslands $

* = w/ Memoryhouse, Baths, Kisses
# = w/ Violens, Prince Rama
$ = w/ The Samps
% = w/ Glasser
& = w/ CAVE

Word has it that she is collaborating with DaM-FunK on a future project, and she plans on releasing her sophomore album sometime in 2011.

Quadron – Jeans // SOM, San Francisco, CA from About Her Films on Vimeo.

If you have your “Jeans” on, you may feel free to take them off as you watch this live performance of Quadron although if you’re at work or school, that may not be a good idea unless your place of employment/education is okay with this. This was shot live at SOM in San Francisco by director Melinda James, and it looked like the crowd were really into them. Take a look and listen.