Jazz on the Beach 171 & Blues Beach 67
New releases, Les McCann in Severance, Blues Power, Italian Jazz
On this week’s Jazz on the Beach radio show playlist there’s music from two terrific Italian musicians, pianist Francesca Tandoi and guitarist Eleonora Strino. I caught them on this short Instagram post playing at breakneck speed with US drummer Joe Farnsworth at the Engelsholm Folk High School in Denmark.
There’s the breathtaking title track from Francesca Tandoi’s Bop Web (Nuccia, 2024), with double bassist Matheus Nicolaiewsky and drummer Sander Smeets, and Eleonora Strino’s beguiling title track from her upcoming Matilde (Cam Jazz, 7th February), with pianist Claudio Vignali, double bassist Giulio Corini and drummer Zeno De Rossi. Strino has featured on the playlist once before but Tandoi is a new discovery. I need to listen to more Italian jazz musicians, can anyone recommend a good local website, blog, or radio show to get started?
There are more exciting new releases too…guitarist Nels Cline introduces the debut album by the Consentrik Quartet (Blue Note, 14th March), with The 23, featuring saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, double bassist Chris Nightcap and drummer Tom Rainey . Someone wrote that it’s ‘free jazz to fusion to downtown NYC’ which sounds about right.
Also this week, there’s the excellent Tykytys (Throbbing) from Finnish double bassist Kaisa Mäensivu’s band Kaisa’s Machine and their upcoming album Moving Parts (Greenleaf Music, 14th March), with vibraphonist Sasha Berliner, guitarist Max Light, pianist Eden Ladin and drummer Joe Peri. Here’s a short album trailer:
I was pleased to hear that Mack Avenue Music Group are working with the Strata-East label, which was founded in 1971 by trumpeter Charles Tolliver and pianist Stanley Cowell. Along with Black Jazz Records on the West Coast it was home to some my favourite music of that time. The first results will be a digital only anthology Strata-East: The Legacy Begins (21st February), so on this week’s playlist there’s Stanley Cowell’s solo masterpiece Equipoise from Musa: Ancestral Streams (Strata East, 1974).
Pianist Bill O’Connell arranged and played on Richard Baretta’s I Feel Good which you heard on last week’s playlist. He returns with Touch, the exquisite title track (yet another title track!) from his new trio album (Jojo Records, 17th January), with double bassist Santi Debriano and drummer Billy Hart. It was beautifully recorded at Van Gelder studio and there’s an excellent version of Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage that I’ll play in a week or two.
Altogether more Balearic is Butcher Brown’s Ibiza from Letters from the Atlantic (Concord Jazz, 28th March) featuring keyboardist and producer DJ Harrison, drummer Corey Fonville, bassist Andrew Randazzo, guitarist Morgan Burrs and multi instrumentalist Marcus ‘Tennishu’ Tenney. Here’s a live performance of the song performed at the High Point Barbershop in Richmond, Virginia.
I was delighted to hear pianist Les McCann’s Burnin’ Coal being played during the chaotic opening sequence of the new series of Severance (Apple TV+). It’s from his album Much Les (Atlantic, 1969), with double bassist Leroy Vinnegar, drummer Donald Dean and percussionists Willie Bobo on timbales and conguero Victor Pantoja. whoever chose this music for the scene (George Drakoulias perhaps?) certainly made the perfect connection.
Music that enhances a scene is also a reason to play alto saxophonist Gene Ammons’ Canadian Sunset from Boss Tenor (Prestige, 1960). The track features pianist Tommy Flanagan, double bassist Doug Watkins, drummer Art Taylor, and conguero Ray Barretto. It crops up in the John Turturro directed Fading Gigolo (2013), a beautifully filmed New York comedy with a cast including Turturro, Woody Allen, Sharon Stone and Vanessa Paradis. The soundtrack perfectly complemented the gorgeous cinematography, and the scene with Canadian Sunset was perfect.
And finally….no excuse needed to play Binker and Moses’ mighty The Departure from their second album Journey to the Mountain of Forever (Gearbox, 2017). It’s just tenor saxophonist Binker Golding and drummer Moses Boyd recorded straight to 1/2” tape with no multitracking, edits or mixing.
To listen to this week’s Jazz on The Beach on Mixcloud, just click below:
Blues Beach
It’s Blues Beach radio show week again, and following last time’s Blues and Elvis special, here’s a playlist of personal favourites and a few requests. There’s Little Charlie & the Nightcats’ Handle With Care, the Dave Kelly Band’s raucous live version of Return to Sender and a teenage Travis Wammack’s Magnatone and Bigsby vibrato powered version of Jimmy Forrest’s Night Train. There’s the Rolling Stones’ version of Robert Johnson’s Stop Breaking Down with some wonderful slide guitar from Mick Taylor and Little Walter’s Dead Presidents with it’s fabulous Willie Dixon lyric about former Presidents on different denominations of dollar bills:
Them dead presidents
Them dead presidents
Well I ain't broke but I'm badly bent
Everybody loves them dead presidents
A little bit of Lincoln can't park the car
Washington he can't go too far
Jefferson is good, played the track
If you think you're gonna bring some big bitch backThem dead presidents
Hamilton on a ten can get you straight
But Jackson on a twenty is really great
And if you're talkin' about a poor man's friend
Grant will get you out of whatever you're in
Them dead presidentsA hundred dollar Franklin is really sweet
A five hundred McKinley is the one for me
If I get a Cleveland I'm really set
A thousand dollar Cleveland is hard to get
Them dead presidents
To listen to this week’s Blues Beach on Mixcloud, just click below:
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Jazz On The Beach broadcasts live every Wednesday evening from 10:00 PM to midnight (UK time), with a repeat on Monday mornings from 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM (UK time).
Blues Beach broadcasts live every other Thursday from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM (UK time).