The Listening Guide
🎶 The listening guide: five albums, released during the past twelve months, chosen around a weekly theme 🎶
This week, we explore five albums that hear the voice being used and accompanied in bold and creative ways: with vocal improvisation and extended technique, poetry and uplifting melodies all at play across the selection. From Sanne Rambags’ unaccompanied, naturally reverberant album SONNA, to the avant-garde jazz collaboration of flautist/composer Nicole Mitchell and classically-trained vocalist Lisa E. Harris on EarthSeed, there’s a range of different albums to dive into.
Brigitte Beraha Music – Lucid Dreamers
https://brigitteberaha.bandcamp.com/album/lucid-dreamers
Lauren Kinsella / Tom Challenger / Dave Smith – Lauren Kinsella / Tom Challenger / Dave Smith
https://laurenkinsella.bandcamp.com/releases
Kyoko Kitamura, Joe Morris, Tomeka Reid, Taylor Ho Bynum – Geometry of Distance
https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com/album/geometry-of-distance
Nicole Mitchell & Lisa E Harris – Earth Seed
https://nicolemitchell.bandcamp.com/album/earthseed
Sanne Rambags – SONNA
Album of the Week
Our album of the week is the eponymous debut from jazz supergroup Artemis. Consisting of pianist and MD Renee Rosnes, clarinetist Anat Cohen, tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Noriko Ueda, drummer Allison Miller, and vocalist/visual artist Cécile McLorin Salvant — the group’s nine-track collection for Blue Note Records features original material alongside arrangements of pieces by The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and Lee Morgan.
Classic Album
On his 68th birthday, we tip our cap to the Joe Henderson classic that introduced Blue Note president Don Was to the wonderful world of jazz music. As Was has told Jazzwise magazine and Marc Maron on the WTF podcast, it was hearing a cut from Mode For Joe over the car radio at the age of 14 that opened his eyes to the music he is now strongly connected to. Recorded in 1966 at the Van Gelder Studio, Mode For Joe features Henderson alongside Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Bobby Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, and Joe Chambers.