The Summer 2011 issue of Signal To Noise features reviews of three of our clients’ recent releases: Other Dimensions In Music featuring Fay Victor‘s Kaiso Stories on Silkheart Records and Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp’s Cosmic Lieder and David S. Ware/Cooper-Moore/William Parker/Muhammad Ali’s Planetary Unknown on AUM Fidelity.

“[Victor] approaches these songs with wide-open intent,” writes reviewer Robert Iannapollo about the Calypso-themed Kaiso Stories, “taking the lyrics (many of them slyly political) and adding her individual approach: stretching the syllables out, using repetition, singing long, loopy melodic lines. While her style derives from Betty Carter and Jeanne Lee, it’s her emotional core and rich, honeyed vocal timbre that sets her apart. Other Dimensions In Music’s full-bore approach is perfect for the project, rhythmically open yet with an African pulse underneath. The frontline blends with Victor in remarkable dialogues; Campbell, in particular, shares a close affinity with her, as the disc’s opening attests. Victor is at the vanguard of jazz singers and Kaiso Stories is yet another important addition to her discography.”

“Jones plays long, curling tones on his alto, sounding more like an especially bold classical cellist than any disciple of Bird or Ornette,” explains Bill Meyer in his review of Cosmic Lieder. “There’s always been a lot of classical technique in Shipp’s playing, and in Jones he has a partner who sounds especially well versed in that language. But he’s also tuned into Shipp’s brand of sound-as-energy, punching coarse, overblown notes through the pianists’s low-end sound field on Multiverse.’ The album title says it all; ‘lieder’ is the German word for song, and while no one sings a note on this record, it has an appropriate directness and clarity.”

Meyer also reviews Planetary Unknown, writing, “Ware plays with authority and stamina that belie his recent health struggles, but also seems open to making new sounds, and there’s a certain humility in his interactions with this group that I don’t recall ever hearing the Quartet. There’s an extended trio passage during ‘Passage Wudang’ where I can imagine him just sitting back and appreciating the way Parker’s bowed bass burrows through the quiet lushness of Cooper-Moore’s piano and Ali’s washes of cymbals and layers of stair-stepping drumbeats. One hopes it isn’t a one-off, and that they find a way to map out what they’ve found on Planetary Unknown.”

Learn more about Fay Victor and AUM Fidelity on their respective Web sites at http://www.fayvictor.com and http://www.aumfidelity.com

Bill Meyer gives KLANG‘s new Benny Goodman-themed recording, Other Doors (Allos Documents), a four-star review in the June issue of DownBeat.

“While the quartet’s leader, clarinetist James Falzone, is, like Goodman, well steeped in both swing and classical music,” Meyer writes, “his allegiance lies more with Jimmy Giuffre and the music of Brittany and the Middle East. But that distance is part of what makes this album stand apart from the repertory exhumations that clog the jazz bins in those few stores that still carry jazz records.”

He adds, “While they honor much that Goodman stood for—’AC/DC Current,’ for example, is full of joy and swings like mad, and the musicianship on ‘Stompin’ At The Savoy’ is of the highest level—they don’t forget who they are or where they come from. Their shared history in groups like Vox Arcana, Engines, and the Valentine Trio is as much an inspiration as Goodman’s tunes for the masterful mixing of tight ensemble playing, free improvising and exploratory atmospherics found on Other Doors.”

KLANG will celebrate the release of Other Doors with performances at The Hideout in Chicago on May 25th and Sugar Maple in Milwaukee on May 27th.

Learn more at http://allosmusica.org

The new Spring 2011 issue of Signal to Noise features reviews of Umbrella Music Festival 2010 performances by both Christof Kurzmann & James Falzone and David S. Ware, as well as a CD review of Betweenwhile, the AUM Fidelity debut of Mike Pride’s From Bacteria To Boys.

“The potentially chancy first-time pairing of local clarinetist James Falzone and Austrian computer musician Christof Kurzmann was a resounding success,” writes Bill Meyer in his festival review. “They improvised a concerto for an orchestra’s worth of grainy, continually mutating electronic tones and Middle Eastern-tinged melodic variations.”

Later in the piece, Meyer went on to call Ware’s solo set “the festival’s most emotionally charged performance so far.” He added, “His authoritative delivery of bold, stark melodies was reassuringly familiar, but the tonality had an exotic Eastern quality. His music was absolutely complete, both at the level of needing no accompaniment but also in the totality of the its emotional, spiritual and physical impact.”

“There’s a lot stirring in the hidden recesses of Brooklyn,” writes Jason Bivins in his Betweenwhile review, “as new generations of outside jazz players take the reins and throw preconceptions about genre and style to the wind. Foremost among these is percussionist Mike Pride, who’s earned his propers with heavyweight veterans and is becoming an ever more distinctive leader…it’s hard not to be impressed by this new group.”