Download not available

Jazz and film noir are perfect bedfellows, as evidenced by the soundtrack of Louis Malle's Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud (Lift to the Scaffold). This dark and seductive tale is wonderfully accentuated by the late-'50s cool or bop music of Miles Davis, played with French jazzmen -- bassist Pierre Michelot, pianist René Urtreger, and tenor saxophonist Barney Wilen -- and American expatriate drummer Kenny Clarke. This recording evokes the sensual nature of a mysterious chanteuse and the contrasting scurrying rat race lifestyle of the times, when the popularity of the automobile, cigarettes, and the late-night bar scene were central figures. Davis had seen a screening of the movie prior to his making of this music, and knew exactly how to portray the smoky hazed or frantic scenes though sonic imagery, dictated by the trumpeter mainly in D-minor and C-seventh chords. Michelot is as important a figure as the trumpeter because he sets the tone, as on the stalking "Visite du Vigile." While the mood of the soundtrack is generally dour and somber, the group collectively picks up the pace exponentially on "Diner au Motel." At times the distinctive Davis trumpet style is echoed into dire straits or death wish motifs, as on "Generique" or "L'Assassinat de Carala," respectively. Clarke is his usual marvelous self, and listeners should pay close attention to the able Urtreger, by no means a virtuoso but a capable and flexible accompanist. This recording can stand proudly alongside Duke Ellington's music from Anatomy of a Murder and the soundtrack of Play Misty for Me as great achievements of artistic excellence in fusing dramatic scenes with equally compelling modern jazz music.© Michael G. Nastos /TiVo

Each member of Trio Tapestry—saxophonist Joe Lovano, pianist Marilyn Crispell, and drummer Carmen Castaldi—has an utterly distinctive voice. Lovano, who has integrated the influence of John Coltrane into his own highly developed sound, is one of the best tenor players in jazz. Crispell, known for her impressive discography and her work with Anthony Braxton among many others, brings a lucid touch and a great sense of space to her instrument. Castaldi is a very unusual drummer—low-volume, spare, free; at times he can recall the late Paul Motian, with whom Lovano also collaborated. (Castaldi and Lovano, both Cleveland natives, have collaborated off and on for decades.) 2023's Our Daily Bread is the group's third album and it's excellent. On "All Twelve," Crispell lays out a twelve-tone row before Castaldi's artful taps and hits come into play. Lovano enters with a wobbling run and the group goes on to coalesce in delicately balanced ways. "Grace Notes" opens with unaccompanied gong tones that are followed by Eastern-flavored piano and rippling trap-kit cymbals. Lovano plays the tárogató, an Eastern European woodwind with a pinched sound evocative of oboe and soprano saxophone. Later, he switches to tenor sax, changing up the group vibe.       "One for Charlie" finds a solo Lovano paying tribute to the great bassist Charlie Haden. The blues-tinged piece, which features exquisite phrasing, is both low-key and moving. "Rhythm Spirit" is a duo for sax and drums and here, Lovano's thoughtful performance is backed by gongs and pianissimo drumming—Castaldi's incredibly quiet dynamics on the track are downright radical. Crispell rejoins her bandmates for the mysterious "Crystal Ball," where Lovano's sax brushes against her clearly articulated melodic fragments, and at times, piano and sax unspool lines in tandem. Throughout, drums provide an abstract percussive backdrop. There's muted dramatic tension in this music. It doesn't reach out and grab you; instead, it pulls you in with its subtleties. Dans la riche et prolixe production discographique du saxophoniste ténor Joe Lovano, ses enregistrements pour le label ECM constituent sans doute la part la plus intime et expérimentale. Après avoir débutée sa collaboration avec le label en 1981dans l’album Psalm de Paul Motian, puis l’avoir poursuivi en participant, toujours en sideman, à d’autres disques du batteur (I Have the Roome Above Her) mais aussi de John Abercrombie (Within a Song) ou Steve Kuhn (Mostly Coltrane), c’est en 2019, à la tête précisément de ce Trio Tapestry que Lovano a finalement franchi le cap d’y signer son premier disque en leader, inaugurant ce que l’on peut d’ores et déjà considérer comme une  nouvelle étape de sa carrière. Après Garden of Expression paru en 2021, Our Daily Bread est déjà le troisième album de ce trio aussi funambulesque que singulier, constitué autour du saxophone ténor lyrique de Lovano des harmonies aussi modernes que raffinées de la pianiste Marylin Crispell et de féérie gestuelle de la batteuse Carmen Castaldi. A partir de compositions originales mettant savamment en scène la dynamique du silence et laissant énormément d’espace à l’improvisation, les trois musicien.nes inventent dans une forme de télépathie relationnelle une musique atmosphérique tout en équilibre instable, passant d’humeurs post-coltraniennes intenses à des séquences d’improvisations collectives fondées sur des jeux de textures sonores impressionnistes d’une grande poésie. Stéphane Ollivier

As much as jazz musicians love to do it, the Christmas album exercise can quickly turn stale. Especially when you opt for a repertoire essentially composed of hits like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Oh Christmas Tree, Il est né le divin enfant, Petit Papa Noël, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow, Silent Night and Jingle Bells. But here, Ibrahim Maalouf has managed to create an impeccable record that gives his trumpet an even better showcase than usual. The starting point of the project is a set of very personal values. "It's an album of 25 great Christmas standards and 3 new songs that I wrote to celebrate both my son's very first Christmas and my grandmother Odette's very last one last year. My memories of Christmas are full of wonderful moments and I wanted to record the album in a way that would capture the magic of those moments.“For this classical, touching effort, Maalouf brought in three friends: guitarist François Delporte, pianist Frank Woeste and choir director Sofi Jeannin, who has selected eight singers with angelic voices. The whole group met in two different recording locations: Armand Amar's Babel studios in Montreuil, where Ibrahim Maalouf worked on his first albums, and the Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre church, the oldest church in Paris, a few metres from Notre-Dame, where his father was sacristan in the 1960s; it was also where the trumpeter got engaged and married...Bolstered by all these strong symbols, First Noël moves forward with simplicity and humility, emphasising the melodies above all, without any kind of Hollywood arrangements. "After having recorded so many albums, I felt that the time had come to set down my version of these great Christmas classics, giving them a less childish, more musical dimension, and a more spiritual aspect as well: but at the same time preserving their necessary and subtle fragility as music for children, and as great classics known and sung worldwide.” The end result is a soothing, dreamlike, fraternal and universal journey. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

It may seem surprising to find an album devoted to dance music from 1300 to 1500 on classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2023. This is a niche slice of the market at best, but after one hears the music of the new ensemble Into the Winds, it will be understandable. Part of the innovation here is just the breadth of repertory represented. Instrumental dances are generally interspersed among vocal pieces, and few performers in performances or on recordings have addressed them as a genre of their own. Into the Winds offers music ranging from simple medieval pieces to transcriptions of vocal polyphony, including a mass by Heinrich Isaac. Beyond this is the crack playing and the intelligent sequencing. All of the players except for percussionist Laurent Sauron trade off among instruments, and there are unusual sonorities at every turn here from such instruments as medieval bassoons with well-thought-out arrangements of several pieces. Many of the composers are anonymous, but others have names and are known, and a recording like this begins to make possible an evaluation of their music. This is a pioneering recording and one that is entertaining for anybody.© James Manheim /TiVo

When this album was recorded, in March 2022, no-one could have imagined that it would be Bramwell Tovey’s last recording. Chandos Records would like to dedicate this recording to the memory of Bramwell Tovey, with whom the company had collaborated for over a decade; a versatile musician highly accomplished as both a composer and a conductor, immensely personable and humorous, who possessed an innate understanding of the qualities of his fellow orchestral musicians and quickly earned their respect and devotion. He shall be very sorely missed. Tovey and the BBC Concert Orchestra capture the wit and charm of Poulenc’s music perfectly. Each piece sizzles with excitement, and the well-known pieces (the Sinfonietta and ballet Les Animaux modèles) are beautifully complemented by less frequently heard miniatures: La Baigneuse de Trouville and Discours du général from Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel and Pastourelle from L’Éventail de Jeanne. © Chandos

This album is one of the cornerstones of French hip-hop music. Its release was a major act for IAM as they finally found a sound to match the quality of their lyrics, as well as for French hip-hop, confirming the fact that rap has a lot of followers in the Hexagon. Like their peers from the suburbs of Paris, NTM, IAM went to New York to instigate the production of this album, seeking for the essence of the sound one can only find in the Big Apple (their previous album was also cut in N.Y.). They teamed with Prince Charles Alexander, the mixer and engineer who worked a lot for Bad Boy Records. They even got close to the Wu-Tang realm through Sunz of Man members on "La Saga." The sound has definitely changed from the previous albums: at first putting themselves in the Egyptian tradition (look at their names), they now have found the musical depth they deserve as ones of the few best lyricists of France. Definitely influenced by the Wu-Tang soundscapes, the opening track is the story of the battle between their school, from the silver mic, against the wooden mic school, in a Bushido style. Too bad that non-French speaking listeners won't get the lyrics; they cannot appreciate the quintessence of IAM's style. However, most of the album sticks to the traditional approach of storytelling, as it covers the city life in its darkness: little brothers that want to grow too fast and be the new caïd ("Petit Frère"), money hungry women who have sex without giving their names, the difficulties to have a similar chance and destiny than a boy growing up in the well-off (about equality of chances) and much more. Not many subjects of relief here, we only breathe thanks to the banging instrumentals and phrasing of the MCs. IAM takes the time to raise questions we don't want to hear, and stories we don't want to remember. This album is just hip-hop as its best: quality of the production with skilled lyricists in top form. This would just be one of you first "must-have" purchase if you plan to approach French rap music.© Vincent Latz /TiVo

Download not available

Download not available

Download not available