The Listening Guide
🎶 The listening guide: five albums, released during the past twelve months, chosen around a weekly theme 🎶
This week, we’ve got five albums of improvised solo playing from a variety of expressive musicians, each with a different instrument of choice.
Lina Allemano – Glimmer Glammer
Tom Rivière – The Things Old Memories Do To Me
Album of the Week
Our NQ Jazz album of the week is the first recording from Auge: a trio featuring pianist Aki Takase, bassist Christian Weber, and drummer Michael Griener. The album was recorded at Traumton Studios in February 2019, and as Takase explains: "I really love the piano trio...but not the old idea, where the pianist is king, and the bassist and the drummer are just sidemen. We are equal.” Support the project on Bandcamp!
Classic Album
The Black Jazz Records catalogue is a veritable treasure trove, with works like Henry Franklin’s 1974 sophomore LP, alongside beautiful albums from Doug and Jean Carn, Kellee Patterson, and the elusive Roland Haynes, amongst others. ‘The Skipper At Home’ is an apt title for our current circumstances, and the gentle gem ‘Soft Spirit’ has a vibe to guarantee domestic bliss. You can find this one on streaming services, and even buy a hi-res digital copy on platforms such as QoBuz.