Messing With Time #1 (Saxophone edition)

A period of non-Internet last month means the first post was pretty lonely for a while, but hopefully the regularity will pick up now I'm back online! For this post I'm going to give you 3 tracks that mess with your internal metronome... they're not necessarily in crazy time signatures, but they require a new look at where beat 1 is! Coincidentally, the first three tracks I wanted to share of this kind of stuff all featured sax players...

Julian Arguelles - free, rhapsodic, manic
This sax player, now based in Edinburgh, keeps putting out really interesting things, and stretching the jazz genre that little bit further. Escapade is one of the most unique and intense albums I know - as a musician, I can hear that the whole band are connected and in sync, yet so much of what they are playing surely can't be notated, it's all too free! Some players will be clearly flying solo, while others lock together in complex melodic stabs and interjections. I would be fascinated to know all this worked in the studio...
Julian Arguelles - Coffee and Diesel


Joshua Redman - funky, quirky, rocky
Joshua Redman is my favourite sax player on the plant - his pieces are exactly the kind of stuff I strive to write for small bands, his playing is flawless, his solos are inventive and avoid clichés, while each album he comes out with does something a bit different. On his album Momentum he went at funk & rock with a bang of studio gear, and came out with some amazing sounds, all from only a few stupidly talented players. (This track features none other than Flea on bass!) This is a track for saxophonists, bassists, drummers, keyboard players, and maniacs.
Joshua Redman - Sweet Nasty



Haftor Medbøe Group - melodic, sweeping, quirky
Another Edinburgh based band, Haftor Medbøe is a guitarist and composer really doing something different. This album heavily features Susan McKenzie on soprano saxophone, a player with a classical background, but utterly at home with this type of intense jazz. They are joined by Chris Grieve on trombone, Signy Jakobsdottir on percussionist (a one-woman percussion section!) and the Edinburgh Quartet on strings.
Despite the unusual line up, there's a really coherent sound - the sax & trombone trading lines across the disjointed angular guitar/percussion backings in the middle of this track flow as well as if there was a conventional funk groove. Live, this band puts on some of the best gigs I've seen too - highly recommended.
Haftor Medbøe Group - Teetotum

Nu-Jazz Re-played

I am very pleased to annouce New Jazz Noises has been added to the glorious thing known as The Hype Machine...

To celebrate this, here's a reminder of what came before, before the next post. Hopefully lots of folk will now see this. Please, please, PLEASE leave a wee comment - I can't be sure who's actually listening otherwise. If you especially like a track, particularly Employee of the Month (them being but a small band...) please head to their respective websites and leave them a message too.

To new jazz noises,

Tom

Super Numeri - The Sea Wolves
Employee of The Month - Brainwave: Corrupted
Isotope 217 - Beneath The Undertow

New Jazz/Nu Jazz

For my first set of noises, I've decided to veer instantly away from what's conventionally seen as jazz. Is this a statement about how this thing's gonna swing? You decide... I'm not sure if I like the 'Nu-Jazz' label, reminds me of that awful thing called Nu-Metal, but the way I see it there's definitely a new strain of music out there, being made by both jazz and electronic musicians, which sits almost evenly in both jazz and electronic genres. That said, the following tracks both contain entirely conventional instruments, without a sampler or turntable in sight. So without further ado, here's a selection of this nu-ness, whatever you want to call it.

Super Numeri - percussive, free, eclectic
Released in November on the eternally brilliant Ninja Tune, The Welcome Table was one of those CDs I heard a snatch of in the shop, and was convinced of its compulsory purchase status before I'd asked the assistant what it was. (Thanks again, Fopp...) From what I can find out, this is a 'collective' from Liverpool, and the sound draws as much from Eastern harmonies and Gamelan as it does from electronic or jazz. The CD lists 15 musicians, playing guitars, strings, woodwind and percussion, and with names suggesting a definite mix of cultures, which is certainly backed up by the sound. A classic crossover project.
Super Numeri - The Sea Wolves

Employee Of The Month - trippy, funky, instrumental, epic
Here's my gratuitously obscure offering - Employee of the Month. A four piece from here in Edinburgh, consisting of keys, guitar, bass and drums, they're a new thing indeed, and this track is from the first demo. The communication and feel on this fundamentally quite simple track takes it from potentially cheesy into a genuine aural journey, led by the ever funky yet tasteful bass... This is pure enjoyment.
Employee of The Month - Brainwave: Corrupted

Isotope 217 - funky, trippy, erratic, trance-like
To round off the first 3 musical offerings from New Jazz Noises, here's one from the US. Isotope 217 include members of Tortoise and Stereolab, yet the electronics have been left behind in favour of brass, fat natural bass, and freeform funk jam style pieces with a twist of crunchy harmonies. They're into phonometrics, which is, according to Satie, the science of measuring sound... Well that explains it, doesn't it.
Isotope 217 - Beneath The Undertow

Welcome...

...to New Jazz Noises. A jazz musician, composer and listener having a go at this whole mp3 blog thing and trying to share some of his favourite new jazz discoveries. Right now I'm going to go and make this place look nice, then choose my first tracks to share.

It's early in the morning, but I'm not very sleepy. This might be a regular state of posting.