John Kelman

Farmers Market Slav to the Rhythm Division Records 2012

It’s hard to believe that music can be so compelling that, even if only heard in passing, it’s still so absolutely memorable. Catching just the first few minutes of Farmers Market at Natt Jazz 2011, thanks to an ungodly airport pickup time the following morning, left such an impression that when the first notes of the opening title track to Slav to the Rhythm hit the speakers nearly a year later, it was immediately clear that this was the same piece with which this remarkable Norwegian/Bulgarian hybrid opened its show. The record features, in addition to the core touring quintet, a cast of 14 additional guests, and main mastermind/multi-instrumentalist Stian Carstensen performs on no less than 22 instruments. Live, however, the significantly pared-down instrumentation of the five-piece Farmers Market meant that, for example, a brief interlude in the song was covered by Carstensen on accordion rather than organ, lending it an entirely different complexion…

Wayne Krantz Howie 61 Abstract Logix 2012

He’s long been a musician’s musician and a guitarist’s guitarist–there’s a reason m: Steely Dan’s m: Donald Fagen recruited him for his last solo disc, Morph the Cat (Reprise, 2006), and saxophonists m: David Binney and m: Chris Potter called him up for Graylen Epicenter (Mythology, 2011) and Underground (Sunnyside, 2006), respectively. Krantz’s instantly recognizable, head-cocking idiosyncracies, combined with his distinctive harmonic language and effortless ability to groove, even at his most oblique, continues to be a lightning rod, with drummer/keyboardist m: Gary Husband also recruiting him for a track on this year’s Dirty and Beautiful Volume 2 (Abstract Logix)…

Jazzahead! 2012 Bremen, Germany April 19-22, 2012

While folks around the world debate the future of jazz–and, for that matter, what exactly jazz is and even what it should be called–an annual trade show in Bremen, Germany, now in its fifth year, has managed to demonstrate that jazz as a brand may be facing challenges like everything else, but is far from approaching its death bed. Jazzahead! also makes clear that the future of jazz is absolutely and undeniably predicated on the tireless efforts of a surprisingly connected (and growing) community of passionate people, who travel each year from points around the globe for a few days of showcase performances, meetings, educational streams…and just plain hanging. From Penang to Portland, Montreal to Molde, Brooklyn to Bologne, Reykjavik to Rotterdam, Tallinn to Tampere and Kuala Lampur to KA ln, musicians, record label reps, festival promoters, booking agents, artist managers, writers, photographers–and people who just want an opportunity to catch as many as fifty acts, selected by an international jury each year, strut their stuff for a brief but important thirty minutes–have made Jazzahead! an annual cannot-miss event whose incremental growth will surprise those who think that the end of jazz is nigh…

e: Cape Town Jazz Festival Cape Town, South Africa March 30-31, 2012

An invite to cover the 13th annual Cape Town Jazz Festival would have been reason enough to travel over 8,000 miles to South Africa. But when the invite, from South Africa Tourism, stretched to an expansive ten-day trip–beginning in Johannesburg, continuing on to Cape Town and ending at the lovely Lukimbi Lodge in Kruger National Park for two days of safari–it became an absolutely irresistible opportunity. Add to that luxury accommodations for an intimate group of just four North American journalists, fine dining, a tour itinerary that made this feel more vacation than work and, finally, the outstanding service of a business class return trip from Johannesburg to Washington, thanks to South African Airways that, at over eighteen hours, was a welcome way to comfortably end a bursting-at-the-seams itinerary, and SA Tourism’s invite seemed destined to become the trip of a lifetime…

Still on the shy side of 40, British pianist Matthew Bourne has accomplished more, in a relatively short time, than many do in a lifetime. Bourne has leaned farther to the left for most of his career, experimenting in both acoustic and electric environs with a free-thinking approach informed, to some extent, by m: Annette Peacock, that unclassifiable singer/writer responsible for some of pianist m: Paul Bley’s most compelling composition-based music, and who was the subject of a two-disc tribute by pianist m: Marilyn Crispell, Nothing Ever Matters, Anyway (ECM, 1997). Like Peacock, Bourne may lean towards the abstruse, the rarefied and the recondite, but he’s no stranger to beauty and simplicity. Montauk Variations is a largely solo outing and on it, this multiple award-winning pianist largely examines a space of calm quietude, though that doesn’t mean his generally soft surfaces don’t have the occasional harder edge or angular twist…