Artemis

Artemis

Blue Note 

Cécile McLorin Salvant (v), Renee Rosnes (p), Melissa Aldana (ts), Anat Cohen (cl), Ingrid Jensen (t), Noriko Ueda (b) and Allison Miller (d)

It would be difficult to imagine a finer introduction to their music than this self-titled debut album from international supergroup Artemis. The recording catches fire from the get-go with the Miller-penned opener ‘Goddess of the Hunt’, which unfolds with an inexorable force thanks to its powerfully insistent ostinato. Aldana’s captivating ‘Frida’ returns to the theme of her much acclaimed 2019 album, Visions, which celebrated the legacy of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo... Peter Quinn

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Tim Garland

ReFocus

Edition 

Tim Garland (ts, ss, p), John Turville (p), Ant Law (g), Yuri Goloubev (b), Asaf Sirkis (d, crotalles), Adam Kovacs (perc), Thomas Gould, Ben Hancox, Magdalena Filipczak, Rakhi Singh, Simran Singh (vn), Robin Ashwell, Juan-Miguel Hernandez (vla), Cecilia Bignall (clo) and Lauren Scott (hp)

Since the British reeds-playing composer Tim Garland is an eclectically powerful storyteller and musical landscape-painter, it was always likely that his idea of a tribute album to one of a departed saxophone hero’s most celebrated works - Stan Getz’s 1961 Eddie Sauter-arranged strings classic, Focus - wouldn’t be a covers job, but personal 21st-century impressions sparked by the original. Garland’s powerful trio with bassist Yuri Goloubev and drummer Asaf Sirkis, shadowed by a small chamber group, primarily drive the music, with pianist John Turville and guitarist Ant Law joining for solos on ‘Jezeppi’, the jaunty final track... John Fordham

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Orlando Le Fleming

Romantic Funk: The Unfamiliar

Whirlwind Recordings

Orlando Le Fleming (b, el b), Philip Dizack (t), Will Vinson (s), Sean Wayland (ky), Kush Abadey and Nate Wood (d)

Royal Academy-schooled bassist Le Fleming was already an in-demand UK-based sideman before taking off in 2003 for New York where he quickly made his mark playing in the bands of Jimmy Cobb, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Joey Calderazzo, Antonio Sanchez and others. He’s since made his presence felt as a leader-composer, gaining plaudits for his drum-less OWL trio but turns a different corner with his Romantic Funk band formed in 2017, revealing a new interest in an electric bass-led fusion that steers clear of all the clichés. The new edition has only saxophonist Will Vinson remaining from the debut CD line-up, and this second instalment includes compositions developed from the band’s extended residency at Greenwich Village’s 55 bar... Selwyn Harris

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Marius Neset / Danish Radio Big Band /Miho Hazama

Tributes

ACT

Marius Neset (ts, ss), Erik Eilertsen, Lars Vissing, Thomas Kjaergaard, Gerard Presencer, Mads la Cour (t), Peter Fuglsang (as, ss, fl, cl), Nicolai Schultz (as, fl), Hans Ulrik (ts, ss, bcl), Frederick Menzies (ts, cl), Anders Gaardmand (bar s), Peter Dahlgren, Vincent Nilsson, Kevin Christensen (tb), Annette Saxe (btb), Jakob Munck Mortensen (btd, tuba), Per Gade (g), Henrik Gunde (p), Kaspar Vadsholt (b, el b) and Søren Frost (d)

With 2016’s Snowmelt and 2019’s Viaduct (both featuring the London Sinfonietta), the Norwegian reeds virtuoso Marius Neset emerged as a chamber-orchestra composer capable of meticulously dissecting 20th century classical techniques in inspired detail, and reinventing them as dynamic jazz-improv frameworks. Tributes, written for the excellent Danish Radio Big Band under its prizewinning young composer/conductor Miho Hazama, is just as kaleidoscopically eventful as those releases, but Neset now shares the improvising with this band’s fine soloists - and working again with an all-jazz lineup, and an autobiographical chronicling of his return to his native Norway after 17 years in Copenhagen, seems to have brought a more playfully laid-back ease to his handling of complex large-scale materials... John Fordham

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Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

The Ever Fonky Lowdown

Blue Engine

Wynton Marsalis (t, v), Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra (brass, reeds, rhythm section) plus Doug Wamble (v, g), Camille Thurman, Ashley Pezzotti, Christie Dashiell (v) and Wendell Pierce (narration)

A consistent strand running through Marsalis’ vast discography is the ‘issues record’, with both historical references and topical resonances. Draw the line from Black Codes Of The Underground to Blood On The Fields to From The Plantation To The Penitentiary, among others. This new offering sees the trumpeter-composer-director of Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra hold forth on no less a subject than the state of the modern world plagued by age old evils such as the abuse of power, corporate greed, bigotry and cult of personality... Kevin Le Gendre

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Terje Rypdal

Conspiracy

ECM

Terje Rypdal (g), Ståle Storløkken (ky), Endre Hareide Hallre (b) and Pal Thowsen (d, perc)

The very absence of Rypdal from a recording studio for nearly two decades only adds to the mythology of the man. The expectation is bound to be high. But the great man and his band, all collaborators of old, delivers. Now 73, Rypdal shows no intention of forsaking his now legendary and hugely sculpted sound. Almost hymnal in its stately progress in ever o’er vaulting soarings, the opening ‘As if the Ghost…Was Me!?’ only heralds further architectonic structures like ‘What Was I Thinking’... Andy Robson

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Rick Simpson

Everything All Of The Time: Kid A Revisited

Whirlwind Recordings

Rick Simpson (p), Tori Freestone (ts), James Allsop (bs), Dave Whitford (b) and Will Glaser (d)

On Everything All Of The Time: Kid A Revisited, London-based pianist Rick Simpson (a member of bassist Michael Janisch’s band among others) reworks Radiohead’s classic album for acoustic jazz quintet. His arrangements are fascinating, full of propulsive riffs, imaginative ensemble playing and freewheeling improvisations. They capture the essence and the adventurous spirit of the original tracks while taking them in intriguing new directions... Thomas Rees

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Ellen Andrea Wang

Closeness

Ropeadope

Ellen Andrea Wang (b, v), Rob Luft (g) and Jon Falt (d)

Of course, no album comes from nowhere. Even a pedigree of touring with

Marilyn Mazur and Manu Katche, or curating the forthcoming Molde jazz festival, doesn’t prepare you for this gorgeously accomplished album. Perhaps recording the album ‘super’ pregnant, as Wang describes it, turned a key, inspiring a mix of memory and desire captured in a dance between the light and the dark. New collaborators Falt and Luft, each in superb form, have also re-visioned her sound... Andy Robson

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