Jazz On The Beach 119: Water From A Distant Well
Abdullah Ibrahim, Charles Lloyd, new music
On this week’s Jazz On The Beach we feature new music from two of jazz music’s most revered elder statesmen who both continue to make life-affirming music, the South African pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim and tenor saxophonist and flautist Charles Lloyd.
Abdullah Ibrahim’s performance at the Barbican Centre in London on July 15th 2023 was a highlight of that year’s EFG London Jazz Festival Summer Series. Both the afternoon’s rehearsal in the empty hall and the evening’s concert in front a capacity audience were beautifully recorded (the first direct to tape, the second digitally), and are being released as 3 (Gearbox Records, January 26th), a suitable title for a trio lineup over three vinyl albums. I played Mindif from the afternoon recording recently, here’s one of Ibrahim’s greatest compositions, Water From A Distant Well, from the evening set. Although originally performed as a septet on the original 1986 recording, it sounds wonderful in a trio format with double bassist Noah Jackson and features a truly remarkable flute solo from Cleave Guyton.
Following on from the recent Trio of Trios project - a series of three live trio albums in different settings - Charles Lloyd returns with a new studio double album optimistically titled The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note) to be released on March 15th,Lloyd’s 86th birthday. The advance track is the beautiful Defiant, Tender Warrior, featuring the new quartet lineup of returning pianist Jason Moran, double bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Brian Blade. Incredibly, it’s exactly sixty years since his first album as a leader was released Discovery! (Columbia, 1964) - long may he keep making great music!
Many thanks to journalist Morgan Enos’ excellent Mondays with Morgan in London Jazz News for alerting me to The Dave Stryker Trio with Bob Mintzer’s Groove Street (Strikezone Records, January). It’s an exciting Hammond organ-fuelled session with guitarist Stryker’s regular trio members, organist Jared Gold and drummer McClenty Hunter Jr with guest tenor saxophonist Bob Mintzer. Most of the songs went down first take and it’s all great, but the Stryker original Summit made this week’s playlist. I’ll certainly be playing plenty more, the version of Cold Duck Time is a blast!
The young Polish bassist Kinga Glyk may have built her reputation via YouTube but the daughter of vibraphonist Irek Glyk learned her craft the traditional way playing live in the family band as a 12 year old. Her deeply grooving Who Cares from album Real Life (Warner Music, January 26th) was written with co-producer Michael League (Snarky Puppy) and features an earworm of an aerophone part (digital wind instrument) played by Casey Benjamin. Also this week there’s a first play for the Estonian singer Sofia Rubina with the positive message of Morning Etude from her new album I Am Soul (self-released, December), that features a fine piano solo from Evgeny Lebedev.
I was drawn to the bittersweet Lunar by double bassist Alex Tremblay and guitarist Dan Liparini from their album Miss You Dear Old Friend (La Reserve, January 26th), and couldn’t resist playing another track from the Charles Owens Trio’s Here It Is (La Reserve, December). This time Owens takes on Earth, Wind and Fire’s After The Love Is Gone with great success.
From the UK jazzers there's pianist Joe Webb’s all-seeing CCTV from the Collblanc EP (Edition, January 26th) with his new trio of double bassist Will Sash and drummer Sam Jesson. Tenor saxophonist Theo Erskine and trumpeter Mark Kavuma are positively hard boppin’ on The Return Of Johnny Bravo from Ultrasound (Banger Factory, December) with pianist Noah Stoneman, double bassist Michael Shrimping and drummer Shane Forbes.
And finally, Kavuma’s old friend and playing partner, the Brixton and Brooklynite Ruben Fox and his winter classic When Snow Falls On New York featuring a gorgeous vocal from Vuyo Sotashie. It’s from Introducing…Ruben Fox (Rufio, 2021) which was one of the first JOTB albums of the year as well as being my first introduction to the wonder of Samara Joy, who sings alongside Shenel Johns and Sotashie on Ruben’s father Mat Fox’s So Much Joy - a great song and a magical performance.
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