Allen Toussaint - The Bright Mississippi (2009) {Nonesuch 480380-2}
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© 2009 Nonesuch Records / Warner | 480380-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Jazz Funk / Groove / New Orleans Jazz Revival / Piano

In Memoriam: Allen Toussaint (1938-2015). The Bright Mississippi stands alone among Allen Toussaint albums. Technically, it is not his first jazz album, for in 2005 he released Going Places on the small CD Baby-distributed Captivating Recording Technologies, a label run by his son Reginald, but for most intents and purposes – and for most listeners – The Bright Mississippi might as well be his first foray into jazz, since it's the first to get a major-label production and release as it's a de facto sequel to Toussaint's successful, high-profile, 2006 duet album with Elvis Costello, The River in Reverse.

The Bob Mintzer Big Band has been a part-time affair for the past 18 years, but somehow the orchestra always manages to sound like a regularly working band. The premise behind Gently was to have the Mintzer Big Band playing at a lower volume, with lyrical arrangements by the leader, along with a greater use of muted brass and flutes. However the orchestra still romps in places and the tempos vary. The big band (which boasts impressive musicianship) features solos from Mintzer on tenor, trumpeters Scott Wendholt, and Michael Mossman, trombonist Michael Davis, pianist Phil Markowitz, altoist Pete Yellin and others, with drummer Peter Erskine driving the ensembles.

Hector Zazou - L'Absence (2003) {Santeria SAN 035}
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© 2003 Santeria / Taktic | SAN 035
Rock / Experimental / Alternative / Downtempo / Ambient

Iconoclastic Belgian composer Hector Zazou is renowned for his collaboration with an eclectic variety of artists. And each and every one of his albums is a sort of voyage and adventure. On L’absence, his latest offering to date, Zazou set himself an existentialist challenge, trying to record an album where he was "there without being there." "I wanted to make an album that was smooth and enjoyable to listen to, something you could put on as background accompaniment while eating a meal." Bon appétit!

Appreciation for the compositions from Scandinavian countries seems to be somewhat of an uphill battle. Apart from the works of Grieg and Nielsen, most other composers from this area of the globe are overlooked. This album of violin concertos by Norwegian composers Johan Svendsen and Peter Lange-Müller seeks to break this injustice. Svendsen's concerto makes clear that the composer was himself a violinist; the solo part is very idiomatically written, favoring lyricism over showiness. The orchestral accompaniment is sometimes overbearing and gets in the way of the solo violin's much more interesting and inspired contribution.

BAM! It's probably not the way you'd expect the Eighth Symphony from a composer often associated with altered, hypnotic states to begin. Glass' style has evolved significantly, though – especially over the last few years. Speaking about his recent commission from the Bruckner Orchester Linz, Glass states, in his own liner notes, that the "the subject of the work is the language of music itself."

Soma Planet is a Progressive rock band born in the mid-Nineties, in Barcelona, Catalunya. At first very influenced by bands such as King Crimson (Seventies and Eighties), Gong, Can or Embryo, the musicians quickly achieved a personal style. All their efforts and time were dedicated in finding formulas to play music that permitted at the same time breaking with traditional harmonies and structures, following improvisational patterns built slowly in time, starting in understanding music as a game. "Bholenath" is the second opus of the band, released in 2007 by the Musea label. There's everything you can imagine in it, as far as Seventies are concerned (Except for keyboards): versatile drumming, roaming bass, a mix of acoustic and electric sequences, vocal (A little) and instrumental (A lot) tracks…

Much in the same fashion as Three Psalms for String Orchestra, on this release, David Chesky takes the listener on a dramatic, orchestral journey. This time David focused on the tragic and dehumanizing effects of ethnic hatred that enables people to kill en masse, as seen in the Jewish Holocaust and others since. David creates a powerful and emotional message by taking the listener through three unique phases of human suffering: "Sorrow", "Aftermath", and "Rage and Despair" to ultimately show that holocausts will continue to occur until our innate ability to empathize with our fellow human beings is realized.

Jan Ladislav Dussek was an important composer of music for the modern piano, bridging the Classical and Romantic eras, yet most of his music is hard to find, both in performance and in print. This disc by Adrienne Soós and Ivo Haag is the first recording of four of his works for piano, four hands, and it demonstrates Dussek's thorough understanding of the piano. In the three sonatas and set of three fugues, one can hear just why his writing is often compared to that of later composers Beethoven and Schubert. In general, Dussek's writing is richer in texture and feeling than most Classical keyboard music, and it sounds completely idiomatic to the instrument. He was one of the first composers to use pedal markings, and he carefully used modulation, relating specific keys to moods. All of this is here. These sonatas have melodies that are almost Schubertian and developments that are Beethoven-like.

The foremost Gypsy guitarist in the world and a legend amonst European Gypsies, Angelo DeBarre has been astonishing audiences world-wide with his virtuosity for the past twp decades. He is one of the most versatile guitarists of our time and is now the recognised master of the style originated by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli at the Hot Club of Paris . Formed in 2000 this UK based Quartet has been touring the world and is known for their cutting edge approach to the later period of the Reinhardt repertoire. This long awaited 2nd CD catches the band live at the tail end of a 2 month tour in 2007. Recorded live at Le QuecumBar, London's world premier Gypsy Swing venue, the quartet rocks through 13 tracks of mostly little played material and shows the band to be at the top of the pile of current European Swing groups.

There are a couple of names here, like Memphis Minnie and Lucille Bogan, that will be familiar to fans of the early blues on this interesting collection of female blues singers who recorded between 1923 and 1930, but most of these singers will be unknown to all but the most serious blues scholars and collectors. Most of them recorded sparingly, often cutting only the two sides of a single 78, before vanishing into the mists of history, remaining now only as vocal ghosts in the digital glow of the 21st century. Those voices, however, remain amazingly powerful, and the honest coarseness and barely veiled sexual themes of these songs is oddly refreshing and hopeful, and the directness of some of these sides seems bold even by today's standards…