Lauren Kinhan Circle in a Square

When I was a kid my parents bought a cabinet stereo: wood panel and big, copper arm over the record.  Neither of them used it much, if ever.  I got their money’s worth.  I listened to the Thunder Ball sound track from the James Bond movie till the groves wore out.  I listened to the Beatles and Barbara Streisand.  I didn’t listen to jazz, because I didn’t know it existed.  I loved the music but I also loved the big album covers. 

Lauren Kinhan has an album that arouses my memories of those early stereo days.  The artwork clearly sets the atmosphere.  Early sixties.  Hi-Fidelity.  Her luscious, velvet voice is a good place to rest your weary head.  I don’t listen to a lot of vocal jazz, but I keep coming back to this one.  The band behind her is brilliant. 

Here’s a bit about that band

Part of what makes Circle in a Square so revelatory is that it provides a rare 360-degree glimpse into Kinhan’s musical world. She wrote all the lyrics and almost all the music for every piece, and shaped each arrangement working with her core rhythm section of pianist/keyboardist Andy Ezrin and drummer Ben Wittman (the well-traveled Will Lee and David Finck divide bass duties). The steady personnel provides a cohesive feel throughout the album, while an all-star gallery of special guests contributes instrumental commentary and eloquent solos, such as Brazilian guitar great Romero Lubambo’s perfectly sculpted acoustic passage on the intricate, lyric-less “Chasing the Sun” and trumpet maestro Randy Brecker’s melodically charged passage on the title track.

This is page two jazz: improvisation is strictly on the margins.  The melody and narrative are all on stage.  You need to keep coming back to this to get the whole point of jazz.  Lauren Kinhan is someone to come back to. 

Christoph Gallio

I received a welcome email this week from Christoph Gallio.  Gallio is jazz saxophonist based in Switzerland.  He found my posts on Day & Taxi, his horn, bass, and percussion trio.  He is sending me a recent recording, which I will review here. 

It is one of the benefits of doing this blog that I occasionally hear from jazz geniuses.  If more of them would drop me a line, I would do more to promote their music.  I love the two Day & Taxi albums About and Less is More.  Gallio was a student of Steve Lacy and it shows.  Here is the lineup for the two albums:

1.       Bass – Dominique Girod

2.      Drums – Dieter Ulrich

3.      Saxophone – Christoph Gallio

I’ll do some more when I get the disc.  Meanwhile I am play ‘Madagaskar’ from About. 

Don Pullen

I have managed to obtain the entire collection of William Parker live recordings released under the title Wood Flute Songs.  There is so much beauty and heartwood in this collection that one cannot hope to appreciate it all in a lifetime.  Everything is here.  All the bits and pieces out of which modern music is composed have been melted down and recast in rainbow colors.  The tracks on which the train of melody rides have been ripped up and laid down again just ahead of the train.  If you listen to my Live365 station, you are sitting in front of William Parker and his co-conspirators. 

Meanwhile, another treasure chest arrived in my mailbox.  I have had Don Pullen’s album Evidence of Things Unseen sitting in my eMusic save file for a long time.  Good thing, that.  The Black Saint and Soul Note box Don Pullen: the Complete Remastered Recordings had that and six other albums.  It cost about 30 bucks.  Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. 

Pullen played piano on a couple of Charlie Mingus albums.  He has bop cred but most of his work under his own name stretches into avant garde.  I am playing the title cut from Evidence, one of his solo recordings.  It is delicious.  Pullen is most often compared to Cecil Taylor.  A lot of the material in this box will support that.  Mostly, though, he is more Monkish than Taylor. 

I am playing ‘Joycie Girl’ from Capricorn Rising.  Alex Blake plays bass, Bobby Battle drums, and Sam Rivers sax.  Finally, I played the title cut from The Sixth Sense.  Fred Hopkins on bass, Battle again on drums, Donald Harrison on sax, and Olu Dara on trumpet.