Maria Neckam - Unison [Sunnyside]

Maria Neckam - voice
Aaron Parks - piano, fender rhodes; Nir Felder - guitar; Thomas Morgan - bass; Colin Stanahan drums
Will Vinson - alto sax; Lars Dietrich - alto sax; Samir Zarif - tenor sax; Kenny Warren - trumpet; Mariel Roberts - cello; Glenn Zaleski - piano

Sunnyside Records 2012

This is a big change of pace considering most of the cds presented on the blog - a vocal album, a collection of songs (melody, lyrics and all that jazz) in the company of all the free around might seem a bit surprising, but this cd deserves a recommendation for the simply fact of it presenting good music.

Samuel Blaser. Russ Lossing, Thomas Morgan, Paul Motian - Consort in Motion [Kind of Blue]

Samuel Blaser - trombone
Russ Lossing - piano
Thomas Morgan - bass
Paul Motian - drums

Kind of Blue Records 2011

Samuel Blaser's name already resonates on jazz scene thanks to his quartet's releases and he has proven himself to be among the most accomplished trombone players of young generation in jazz music. "Consort in Motion" is another step in his career and it is a step in quite a different direction.

Blaser embarks on a difficult and ambitious project as he tries to merge two distant musical traditions - Jazz and Baroque music. He selected and re-arranged for this jazz ensemble compositions by Claudio Monteverdi, Biagio Marini and Girolamo Frescobaldi (or wrote his own compositions - using their music as an inspiration). Now I'm hardly to be called classical music afficionado and that robs me plenty of the intellectual pleasure one might find in deciphering the ways Blaser adapted the original material, but I still find here much to appreciate.