The Listening Guide
🎶 The listening guide: five albums, released during the past twelve months, chosen around a weekly theme 🎶
This week’s theme is free jazz and improvised music. Johnny Hunter Quartet, led by the drummer, composer, and regular NQ Jazz performer, recorded Studies In Lockdown II remotely over the Audiomovers platform. Tenor saxophonist Mark Hanslip, trumpeter Graham South, bassist Seth Bennett, and drummer Johnny Hunter all recorded their parts at home while collaborating in real time, with Hervé Perez contributing field recordings and sound design, before mixing and mastering the three studies. The obstacles posed by latency and lack of sight-lines informed the performance and outcome of the pieces. Trumpeter Charlotte Keeffe appears in a number of configurations on her debut album for Discus Music, entitled Right Here, Right Now. There are four quartet pieces with Ashley John Long on double bass, Ben Handysides on drums, and Moss Freed on guitar, as well as recordings with London Improvisers Orchestra, plus solo and duo performances. In all, Charlotte brings together upwards of 60 improvising musicians on album with exciting variations in soundscape and energy. The secret handshakes with danger, vol. 1 features Binker Golding on saxophones, Henry Kaiser and N.O. Moore on guitars, Olie Brice on upright bass and Eddie Prévost on drums and percussion. The album’s two tracks are described as ‘largely influenced by Miles Davis’s On The Corner electro-jazz era’ but are entirely spontaneous in their composition. The first duo recording from sax and flute player Skeeter Shelton with drummer/percussionist Hamid Drake, entitled Sclupperbep, was recorded in early 2019 and features a number of Skeeter’s themes within its free improvisational flow. Our list is completed by the first freely improvised recording collaboration from pedal steel virtuoso Susan Alcorn, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, and noise cellist Leila Bordreuil. You can support each of these brilliant projects via Bandcamp.
Johnny Hunter Quartet – Studies in Lockdown II
Charlotte Keeffe – Right Here, Right Now
Skeeter Shelton & Hamid Drake – Sclupperbep
Susan Alcorn, Leila Bordreuil, Ingrid Laubrock – Bird Meets Wire
Album of the Week
Our NQ Jazz album of the week is the debut collaborative album from vocalists and songwriters Lucy Yeghiazaryan and Vanisha Gould. A collection of originals and ‘carefully curated standards’, the twelve-song album ‘offers a glimpse into the private lives of women told from their unique perspectives’. They are joined by guitarist Eric Zolan, bassist Dan Pappalrdo, cellist Kate Victor and violinist Ludovica Burtone. You can buy the album via Bandcamp!
Classic Album
Released fifty years ago and featuring such greats as Billy Higgins and Cedar Walton, the alto saxophonist and flautist Sonny Red’s eponymous album is our #NQJazzClassicAlbum this week. The album has seven tunes packed with memorable melodies and soulful, efficient playing from Walton on piano. You can find it on streaming services, with a few physical copies on platforms like Discogs.