2017

Stigers Curtis/Danish Radio Big Band: One more.. [CD]

British pianist Django Bates returns to ECM with one of his very finest constellations, the trio Belovèd, with Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and Danish drummer Peter Bruun, and an aptly named album, "The Study of Touch". All three musicians are highly individual players, subtly challenging the conventions of the jazz piano trio. The group came together a decade ago when Bates was teaching at Copenhagen's Rhythmic Music Conservatory. The shared work has included inspired reconstructions of pieces associated with Charlie Parker - a formative influence for both Bates and bassist Eldh - and in this new album, Parker's tune "Passport" is set amid Django originals, and played with respect, contemporary sensibility and joy. Some of Django's own tunes here - such as "Senza Bitterness", "Sadness All The Way Down" and "We Are Not Lost, We Are Simply Finding Our Way" have become core pieces in Belovèd's repertoire, continually remodeled by this trio of improvisers. Bates' composing and arranging skills are much in evidence, along with his freewheeling, free-flowing virtuosic melodic sense. The terse, percussive edge of Petter Eldh's bass provides momentum and drummer Peter Bruun details the music with an almost painterly touch. In the crowded world of the piano trio, Belovèd has developed a sound all its own. "The Study of Touch" was recorded at Oslo's Rainbow Studio in June 2016, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

For his third ECM release as a leader, Chris Potter presents a new acoustic quartet that naturally blends melodic rhapsody with rhythmic muscle. The group includes superlative musicians well known to followers of ECM's many recordings from New York over the past decade: keyboardist David Virelles, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Marcus Gilmore, who each shine in addition to the leader on multiple horns. The Dreamer Is the Dream features Potter on tenor saxophone - the instrument that has made him one of the most admired players of his generation - in the striking opener "Heart in Hand" and such album highlights as "Yasodhara," as well as on soprano sax ("Memory and Desire") and bass clarinet (the title track). Potter is an artist who "employs his considerable technique in service of music rather than spectacle," says The New Yorker, and his composing develops in texture and atmosphere with every album.

Fitzgerald Ella: Ella 100 1936-66 [Digipack / 4 CD]

Digipack.<br/><br/>Dom skrattade när jag slog mig ned vid pianot. Men när jag började spela!" (they Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano. But when I started to play!") är en svensk jazzklassiker med pianisten Berndt Egerbladhs kvartett. <br/><br/>Inspelningen gjordes i Stockholm hösten 1966, då Egerbladh beredde sig på att flytta från sin dittillsvarande hemstad Umeå för att utbilda sig till TV-producent i Stockholm där han fram till sin död 2004 kom att vara en flitig, mångsidig och vida omtyckt musiker, kompositör och programmakare. <br/><br/>På denna skiva hör vi hans Umeå-baserade kvartett som visar att jazzens utveckling i Sverige skedde på en bred front som även omfattade landets nordligare delar. <br/>All musik är signerad Egerbladh och spelas förutom av honom själv vid pianot av Lars-Göran Ulander altsax, Lars-Gunnar Gunnarsson kontrabas och Sten Öberg trummor.<br/>Förutom det ursprungliga LP-materialet finns här tre alternativa tagningar som tillägg.

Svensk jazzhistoria vol. 11/Jazz Cosmopolit är en box med fyra fullmatade cd-skivor och en 188-sidig bok om den svenska jazzen på 1970-talet.<br/> <br/>Här hörs musik av så vitt skilda namn som Alice Babs, Monica Dominique, Nannie Porres, Monica Zetterlund, Lars Gullin, Georg Riedel, Bernt Rosengren, Nisse Sandström, Janne Schaffer, Bobo Stenson, Eje Thelin, Per Henrik Wallin, Putte Wickman, Lennart Åberg och grupper som Egba, Iskra, Mount Everest, Oriental Wind, Rena Rama, Sevda, Solar Plexus, Radiojazzgruppen, Tintomara m.fl.

Eidolon är en uppdaterad samling med hans egna favoriter från sin karriär som gitarr-ess.