Origin new releases

[mjzee]

Release date June 16:

... superb melodic interpreters... The session's program choices prove ideal for each trumpeter's upper register flurries, dips and octave leaps... Rather than an instrumental battle or cutting contest, East-West Trumpet Summit" underlines the artistry that results when great musicians from diverse backgrounds find common ground... " JazzTimes. With their fiery 2010 quintet release "East-West Trumpet Summit," trumpeters Ray Vega and Thomas Marriott's inspired partnership resonated with jazz audiences and quickly hit #1 on the airplay charts. Now with their third installment celebrating the fabled tradition of Fats Navarro/Howard McGhee and Freddie Hubbard/Woody Shaw recordings, the duo brings along Philadelphia's own, Orrin Evans on piano, the legendary Roy McCurdy from Los Angeles on drums, and Seattle bassist Michael Glynn for a set that ranges from George Cables, Don Cherry, and Mingus penned tunes, to originals by Marriott and a couple of Great American Songbook ballads. As with it's predecessors, this album swings from "Coast to Coast!" "... brimming with creative imagination, technical fluency, and a deep respect for the jazz tradition." - INTERNATIONAL TRUMPET GUILD

[mjzee]

Full of inventiveness and a sense of adventure... - Stephen Scott. Over his 20 years as a jazz pianist, Keigo Hirakawa has transformed himself into an artist with vision and a unique sense of expression. Born in Japan and raised in Ohio, he was trained in New York, Boston, and Princeton under the mentorship of Danilo Perez, Cecil McBee, Anthony Branker and many others. His other career, as a professor of electrical & computer engineering, brought him back to Ohio where he's also found inspiration in the region's rich musical scene. His 8 highly crafted compositions come to life under the hands of the musicians who inspired them - the dynamic Detroit-based rhythm duo of drummer Alex White and master bassist Bob Hurst, along with Cincinnati's Brandon Scott Coleman on guitar and Detroit reed master Rafael Statin.

[mjzee]

Release date August 25:

John La Barbera's well-framed charts tantalize the ears and quicken the heart - All About Jazz. With his career at the highest levels of the music industry spanning a half-century, Grammy nominated composer/arranger John La Barbera doesn't have much left to prove, so gathering a band of equals in New York City and spending some time recording his latest & best hard-swinging arrangements, makes good sense! Along with his equally storied brothers, saxophonist Pat and drummer Joe, La Barbera fills "Grooveyard" with jazz royalty, including Steve Wilson, Renee Rosnes, Clay Jenkins, and the legendary bassist, Rufus Reid, for a set of four arranged tunes from Brubeck, Curtis Fuller, Elvin Jones, and the title track from pianist Carl Perkins, and six of his own original compositions. Thanks to his early career in helping to define the sounds of the Buddy Rich Band, Woody Herman, Bill Watrous and so many others, La Barbera's works have become jazz big band standards.

Release date September 15:

Immersed in thoughts of identity, family and culture, Chicago saxophonist Maddie Vogler commissioned the original cover art depicting the hands of her immigrant grandmothers to frame her debut recording. Steeped in modern jazz while freely exploring Vogler's relationship with her Cuban roots, her nine original compositions are brimming with adventurous rhythmic energy and melodic soulfulness. Her musical mentor, trumpeter Tito Carrillo, shares the front line, while the rhythm section of Matt Gold, Jake Shapiro, Samuel Peters, and Neil Hemphill provide a percolating momentum on tunes such as "The Need To Be," an elegiac gait on "Corridors," or a driving, Afro-Cuban flavored 9/8 on "Check Engine Light." While We Have Time is an expansive and striking debut, planting Vogler squarely within Chicago's great, historical jazz legacy.

For a decade now, saxophonist, composer, and Fulbright scholar Benjamin Boone has artfully merged the works of vital, contemporary poets with the in-the-moment creations of astute, innovative jazz musicians, first through his two critically acclaimed recordings with U.S. poet laureate Philip Levine, and most recently with 2020's The Poets Are Gathering, providing a striking platform for the spoken word. The dance of imagery and rumination set in motion by Patrick Sylvain's "Caught in the Rhythm," supplies a running theme for this exploding kaleidoscope of diverse voices, with Ambrose Akinmusire, Greg Osby, Kenny Werner and Ben Monder being a few of the interacting musical voices. Together, they offer an aural front page of dispatches, reveries, declamations, and narratives from past and present. Leave it to music, melding with shadow and light, to make the case for poetry.

[mjzee]

Release date August 25:

... like a skilled boxer, he stays within himself, confidently bobbing and weaving melody through the steady rhythm, jabbing and dancing, soloing in flurries of notes. JAZZ REVIEW. From New York to Los Angeles and Kansas City, saxophonist Matt Otto always cultivated an inspired musical community with which to surround himself. Now having 14 years of performances with the energized and spontaneous KC duo of bassist Jeff Harshbarger and drummer John Kizilarmut, the vibrancy of their interactions is a given, and apparent, as the trio provides the momentum for this set of nine Otto originals. On several tracks, Matt Villinger's Fender Rhodes provides astute chordal realizations of Otto's harmonies, while guitarist Alex Frank adds an edge of free, '70s-era fusion energy. Also featured is the Paris-based trumpeter Hermon Mehari, who returns to his Kansas City roots occasionally and was in town to add his sparkling voice to three pieces.

Release date August 25:

A guitar virtuoso of Indian & Brazilian-Portuguese descent, based in New York City, Bobby Rozario is a third-generation musician mentored by his parents in Hindustani Classical music, and brought up playing jazz & blues. His blazing, idiosyncratic style interprets melodic lines of Raagas and blends them into captivating lines injected with Afro-Latin and jazz/rock/fusion vocabulary. On his second solo album, Rozario dives deep into heavy Latin and Afro Latin rhythms, with his 11 originals accentuated by the virtuosic grooves of Dennis Chambers and Latin drumming master Robby Ameen, and the bass wizardry of Gary Grainger, James Genus and Melvin Gibbs. Edsel Gomez further embellishes the soundscape with his Latin-jazz tinged piano solos, while the soaring vocals of Guinean singer Ismael Kouyate, Cuban vocalist Jose Pepito Gomez and New York's Chris Alfinez are additional highlights on three tracks. With Spellbound, Bobby Rozario has sculpted an album that resonates with entrancing guitar.

[mjzee]

Release date March 1:

Lushly orchestrated by Kyle Gordon for a 33-piece chamber orchestra, bassist David Friesen's compositions soar in this new 12-part work, originally conceived for the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine. Following 2020's "Testimony," which featured that ensemble, Friesen began on this masterwork with the premier set for the Philharmonic Hall in Kyiv in May of 2022. With that date becoming an impossiblility, Gordon instead sculpted the orchestra in his Los Angeles studio with a sample library and an ear trained in producing for expansive, sweeping film and TV soundtracks. Interacting with the duo of Friesen, pianist Paul Lees along with percussionists Charlie Doggett & Rob Moore, the suite unfolds as a spiritual light that offers forgiveness, hope and purpose, through movements such as "Perseverance," "Innocence," "Tides Turning," and the hymn-like "Return To The Father," written for his wife of 58 years who passed away during a tragic week that included the invasion of Ukraine.

Hagiga is a group that takes the freedom to play what they feel like, making the fun and craftsmanship splash! - Music Frames (Netherlands). Beginning with Dave Douglas' contributions to John Zorn's "Masada," through his seminal albums of the '90s, Israeli saxophonist Alon Farber has been deeply inspired by the beauty & uniqueness of the trumpeter's expansive sonic output. Hoping to someday find the opportunity to cross musical paths, that day came in the summer of 2023 as Douglas joined Farber's accomplished group, Hagiga (meaning, appropriately, 'celebration'), at the Jerusalem Jazz Festival. Providing the band with great inspiration, Alon dubbed Douglas "the magician," as he lifted the ensemble with his presence, his tunes offering stimulating landscapes for them to explore, while Hagiga's iridescent chemistry delivered their own magic. "... a powerful, serious album... " - Distrito Jazz (Spain)

 

 

[mjzee]

Release date April 26:

The craft is tight, the feeling is refreshing, the sound is quick and precise, and the gestalt brings the individual voices of the musicians into group form. - Robin James, All About Jazz. With an all-star, monumentally swinging band in tow, saxophonist Jordan VanHemert returns to his roots on "Deep in the Soil," setting aside his usual tenor saxophone for the alto, and revisiting the sounds and life-force of Charlie Parker, whose music first shaped his playing. With his partners on the front-line - trumpeter Terell Stafford and trombonist/co-producer Michael Dease - and the fleet rhythm section of Helen Sung, Rodney Whitaker and Lewis Nash, VanHemert explodes with a set of modern jazz originals, composed by himself, Dease, Stafford, Jimmy Heath and Sharel Cassity, along with an effervescent arrangement of Stevie Wonder's "Superwoman." "Creative, grounded, and strikingly passionate." - Jazz Sensibilities

 

[mjzee]

Release date September 20:

This second pairing of the dominant trombonist of our time and the prolific idiosyncratic composer Gregg Hill, plays out in an expansive aural sandbox. Full of reminders of '70s cinema, Zappa albums circa The Grand Wazoo, bebop, and Big Bands through the ages, the strong melodies and committed musical integrity assure the feeling is substantial, swinging, and exciting. Structured and highly contrapuntal pieces unfold in sections, with the world-class soloists imbuing the music with an organic energy that ties together the storylines. Dease, performing on trombone and baritone sax, is joined by the woodwind section of Sharel Cassity, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Jason Hainsworth & Virginia MacDonald, Matt White on trumpet, Nanami Haruta on trombone, and the rhythm section of Bill Cunliffe, Katie Thiroux, Colleen Clark, and Gwendolyn Dease on marimba & percussion.Bustling like a mashup of Ray Anderson and Charles Mingus, Dease's band carves a broad swath through territory that seems somewhat familiar. - DownBeat

[mjzee]

Release date November 22:

Though a major international jazz figure for decades, it wasn't until 2015 that a tour allowed bassist-composer David Friesen the opportunity to visit his mother's ancestral home of Ukraine for the first time. Welcomed by a camera crew and introductions to pivotal musicians and cultural institutions, his journey was first documented on 2020's critically acclaimed "Testimony," recorded live at Kyiv's National Philharmonic Hall with the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine. The ensuing pandemic and war put further plans on hold, but Friesen was able to record with the Kyiv Mozart String Quartet in October 2021, and those recordings provide the framework and soul of "A Light Shining Through." Adding organic percussion sounds and saxophone to his singing melodies, the album's tuneful vignettes reflect the many emotions exposed through his journey of ancestral discovery.

 

[Pim]

3 hours ago, mjzee said:

Release date November 22:

Though a major international jazz figure for decades, it wasn't until 2015 that a tour allowed bassist-composer David Friesen the opportunity to visit his mother's ancestral home of Ukraine for the first time. Welcomed by a camera crew and introductions to pivotal musicians and cultural institutions, his journey was first documented on 2020's critically acclaimed "Testimony," recorded live at Kyiv's National Philharmonic Hall with the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine. The ensuing pandemic and war put further plans on hold, but Friesen was able to record with the Kyiv Mozart String Quartet in October 2021, and those recordings provide the framework and soul of "A Light Shining Through." Adding organic percussion sounds and saxophone to his singing melodies, the album's tuneful vignettes reflect the many emotions exposed through his journey of ancestral discovery.

 

Sounds like an interesting project. Great to see David is still active on the scene.

[soulpope]

A label with excellent Cover Art for sure ....