„EARLY REFLECTIONS” W DZIESIĄTCE ROKU!

JF

„Powrót do korzeni, przed siebie w przyszłość” – to tytuł artykułu, w którym krytyk „New York Timesa” dokonał zestawiana dziesięciu najlepszych albumów minionego roku w rocku, popie i jazzie. Na miejscu drugim umieścił album Bennnie’ego Maupina „Early Reflections”, na którym amerykańskiemu liderowi towarzyszy polska sekcja: Michał Tokaj - p, Michał Barański - b i Łukasz Żyta - dr.

„Oto najnowszy rozdział niedawnego powrotu tego saksofonisty i basklarnecisty, który ożywił jazz lat 70. w nagraniach z Milesem Davisem i Herbie’m Hancockiem.
Obecnie współpracuje z polskim akustycznym triem jazzowym, tworząc w sposób cierpliwy muzykę o otwartych przestrzeniach i  wyrazistych melodiach” – tak uzasadnia swój wybór Ben Ratliff.
Na płycie nagranej w Warszawie i wydanej przez kalifornijską wytwórnię Cryptogramophone w dwóch utworach śpiewa gościnnie ludowa śpiewaczka z Zakopanego, Hania Chowaniec-Rybka. Album „Early Reflections” miał prapremierę w maju br. na Zakopiańskiej Wiośnie Jazzowej, promowany był koncertami w klubach Los Angeles i Nowego Jorku, a niedawno również na Międzynarodowym Festiwalu Pianistów Jazzowych w Kaliszu.

Oryginalny tekst artykułu z „New York Timesa”:

Back to Roots, Ahead to the Future
The best of this year’s rock, pop and jazz albums include releases by Metallica, Bennie Maupin, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Gonzalo Rubalcaba.

by Ben Ratliff

1. METALLICA “Death Magnetic” (Warner Brothers). World-beating rock bands of the 1980s managed their grandiosity and altered their goals or just collapsed; Metallica was sputtering along without much inspiration. But the band woke up with the knowledge that it had once been great and decided to compete again, making a heavy-rock record that sounds anxious and wise even while jammed with detail.

2. BENNIE MAUPIN “Early Reflections” (Cryptogramophone). The next chapter in the recent return of this saxophonist and bass clarinetist, who enlivened jazz during the 1970s with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. He’s now working with a Polish acoustic jazz trio, making patient music with open space and strong melodies.

3. ******** “The Chemistry of Common Life” (Matador). This Toronto band with a bellowing lead singer and an unprintable name gets the punk ideal right: change your strategies, disguise your intentions, and who cares what anyone thinks. This record starts and ends with so-so hardcore and rises in the middle into an imperious stretch of songs, with deep layers of guitars, about dread and the circle of life. It approaches the power of a Big Rock Album like, say, “Who’s Next.”

4. RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA “Kinsmen” (Pi). This Indian-American jazz saxophonist collaborates with the Indian-from-India, nonjazz saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath and with a two-sided band, half jazz and half not. The result could be clinical but isn’t; with good writing, smart instincts and good old passionate collective improvisation, it sounds like syncretism understood in the bones.

5. GONZALO RUBALCABA “Avatar” (Blue Note). This pianist — Cuban-born, now in Florida — is an imposing, somewhat distant presence in the American jazz scene. But here he connects with young and new musicians from New York, enlivening his sound-world and ours.

6. STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS “Real Emotional Trash” (Matador). Excellent long-form songs and a rehearsed version of cathartic jamming make this Mr. Malkmus’s best record since leaving Pavement.

7. HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR “Hercules and Love Affair” (DFA/EMI). The disco revival: who cares, per se? But salvation through groove and repetition is forever, and so is the message of love on this sophisticated, elegiac dance-music record.

8. CASSANDRA WILSON “Loverly” (Blue Note). Where Ms. Wilson’s records once lived or died on arrangement and concept, now the band is the thing. On her first record of jazz standards in 20 years, that band exudes a slow, natural, organic complexity.

9. MARY HALVORSON TRIO “Dragon’s Head” (Firehouse 12). Tense, noisy, a little arch, the first album from this jazz guitarist (with the bassist John Hebert and the drummer Ches Smith) has the power of a manifesto and the self-assurance that comes with smart composition and arrangement. Best of all: this is a group, with its own compound personality.
10. PONYTAIL “Ice Cream Spiritual” (We Are Free). Two Fender Telecaster guitars, no bass, drums like a kick in the head and Molly Siegel’s crazy-naïve singing: this band’s second album is a wild, trebly racket, full of guile, mystery and catharsis.

Top Songs
T-PAIN “Chopped N Skrewed” (Jive)
LIL WAYNE “A Milli” (Cash Money/Universal Motown)
THE MATTHEW HERBERT BIG BAND “The Yessness” (K7)
BEYONCé “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” (Sony BMG)
WEEZER “Pork and Beans” (Geffen)