For the past few weeks I've covered various things: Brazilian Music for the FIFA World Cup, African Sax Kings, Little Jimmy Scott, and Songs About Food. When you do this the new releases pile up and it gets to a point where you have to share them. I only keep and promote about 40% of the music I receive: the fancy word is "curation". Sounds pretentious, but I never feature an album I haven't already auditioned and like. It's like that saying associated with the U.S. Marines: "Many are called, few are chosen."
First up is Melissa Aldana, a young tenor saxophonist from Chile. She won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition a few years ago, and getting an album on Concord is part of that award. I love her sound, her bassist, and drummer--you'll hear a nice dollop of Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman in her sound and phrasing too. I'm always happy to see women playing saxophones, but many of them (excepting Jane Ira Bloom) tend to be smooth jazz or lightweight. Melissa is not one of them.
An unusual album follows by Marcel Camargo and The Brazil You Never Heard in their first EP, Behind Jobim. Jobim studied with classical composers and knew the classics well, and this album reflects that: the cut we'll hear is an amalgam of Chopin--a prelude--and Jobim's song, "Insensatez" ("How Insensitive"). It features Gretchen Parlato, who sounds very ethereal on this cut. We then ramp it up with some intense drumming from Nigeria's Kasai Allstars from Lagos. It has a Congotronics kind of hypnotic groove. Hot New York-based salsa band Los Hacheros follow with some nice Afro-Cuban grooves which is all recorded live on a Tascam 388 reel-to-reel tapedeck. This gives the band a classic live sound.
Gerardo Frisina follows with a smooth groove; it's on 45 rpm 10" vinyl from Italy. Little Dragon, a KCRW favorite, follows with her new album, Nabuma Rubberband. Zara McFarlane follows with a beautiful cut from her Brownswood album, in a duet with a hang drum.
Hiroshi Ichikura and Chika Ueda have a CD available in Japan and we feature a really lovely track from it, then Argentine bandoneonista Dino Saluzzi's gorgeous new ECM side.
Finally we feature a classic song, "Opus de Funk" from a great 1953 Blue Note session by the late Horace Silver. I have been listening to a 1983 interview I did with Horace and will be putting that out on Rhythm Planet soon. I'm happy the cassette still plays okay!
That's it for this week. Hope you enjoy the show!
Rhythm Planet Playlist: 6/27/14
- Melissa Aldana / M&M / Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio / Concord
- Marcel Camargo and The Brazil You Never Heard feat. Gretchen Parlato / Prelude-Insensatez / Behind Jobim / DL Media
- Kasai Allstars / Salute To Kalomo / Beware The Fetish / Crammed Discs
- Los Hacheros / Azucar / Pilon / CD Baby
- Gerardo Frisina And Maurizio Bonizzoni aka DJ Skizo / Voice Of The Jungle/Orient / Single / Schema
- Little Dragon / Killing Me / Nabuma Rubberband / Loma Vista-Republic
- Zara McFarlane / Open Heart / If You Knew Her / Brownswood
- Hiroshi Ichikura & Chika Ueda / Unknown / Makura-No-Soshi / Cue Entertainment
- Dino Saluzzi / Unknown / El Valle De La Infancia / ECM
- Horace Silver / Opus De Funk / Horace Silver Trio / Blue Note