The Claudia Quintet becomes a sextet on its forthcoming album with the addition of Gary Versace on piano.
The Claudia Quintet becomes a sextet on its forthcoming album with the addition of Gary Versace on piano.
This week's episode of All Songs Considered, the podcast/radio show/multimedia constellation hosted by Bob Boilen, calls upon a certain blogger supreme for new jazz recommendations.
Along with colleagues Frannie Kelley and Lars Gotrich, I joined Bob and producer Robin Hilton last week to listen to new and yet-unreleased music in the studio. Frannie keeps tabs on hip-hop for NPR Music; Lars, as you know from his bylines for this blog, is our extreme music specialist; and as the jazz beat writer, I stepped in too. We each submitted three songs for consideration: I picked cuts from the soon-to-be-released Claudia Quintet (plus Gary Versace) album Royal Toast, Mike Reed's expanded edition of People, Places and Things and their new album Stories and Negotiations, and the upcoming collaboration between David Karsten Daniels and Fight The Big Bull called I Mean To Live Here Still.
And then we talked about all this stuff a little. (Editorial intervention: I am so looking forward to this Big Boi solo album.) We had lots of fun; we hope you get that too. Again, hear the entire discussion, or just individual tracks, here. If you subscribe to the podcast, it should be in your feed presently.
As a follow-up to all that, I also wanted to mention that:
- The entirety of the new Claudia Quintet + Gary Versace record, Royal Toast, will be available for streaming in advance next week as part of NPR Music's Exclusive First Listen album preview series. This here is clean, intricately structured instrumental music from the drummer John Hollenbeck, plus piano, accordion, vibraphones, bass and reeds; it grooves hard. In our discussion, I said it might be a discovery for fans of Deerhoof or Spoon, bands which make precisely ordered but really exciting, ear candy music. I might have also thrown in bands like Battles or Tortoise, who show that instrumental rock can be fun. Anyway, next week.
- Mike Reed's People, Places and Things has been blogged about here before, but the track that's in the show — a Sun Ra tune — is a lot more representative of the band than the slow, difficult piece heard earlier. Also, this particular record expands the core quartet to an octet, with the addition of Jeb Bishop on trombone plus three veteran Chicago cats in Ira Sullivan (tenor sax), Art Hoyle (trumpet) and Julian Priester (trombone). You can hear more tunes from the album, and even download a few, at Reed's website.
- Close followers of this blog will also note previous mention of David Karsten Daniels + Fight The Big Bull in this here bandwidth. There's a rough, DIY music video now for the "single" — a tune different from the one heard in the All Songs episode — and a cover contest to go along with it. Here's "The Funeral Bell"; musicians are encouraged to submit their covers as YouTube responses to this video:
I must say, I quite enjoyed all the picks on the show this week, even if I stumbled through all my words to get mine out. Thanks, colleagues and Bob! And again, link here. [All Songs Considered: The Best In New Hip-Hop, Jazz, Metal And Noise]
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