Jazz

Since 1971, Keith Jarrett has been signed to ECM, which has proven to be one of the strongest and most productive relationships between an artist and their label ever. On the 16th July, 2016, the American pianist was performing the final concert of his summer tour in Munich, the stronghold of producer Manfred Eicher. On that evening, Jarrett gave the Bavarian audience an improvisational torrent, which he does so well. However, unlike these same exercises which he has performed over the decades, he delivers them here in short segments. Gone are the 20/30-minute-long tracks like on the famous Köln Concert of 1975, the Sun Bear Concerts of 1976, the Paris Concert of 1990 or the Vienna Concert of 1992! Those from Munich 2016 are separated into twelve parts and give an overview of the multifaceted tastes of their author, a (quite literally) “extra” “ordinary” musician, who can make his instrument swing like the old masters, but can also express himself with musical phrases which are rhythmically and harmoniously very complex, even daring. Over the course of the 86 minutes of Munich 2016, a juggling of silences is favoured over frenzied notes, before a bluesy motif falls away to reveal a chamber music miniature. As the minutes unfold, Jarrett continues to toe the line separating jazz and classical music. He ends this unparalleled tour de force with a fresh take on three classics (Answer Me My Love by Nat King Cole, It’s a Lonesome Old Town made famous by Sinatra and Somewhere Over the Rainbow straight out of The Wizard of Oz), which flawlessly bring this ocean of sound to an end. It is also funny to note that this particular Munich concert will be remembered for reasons beyond the music. After his cover of Over the Rainbow, and in the middle of a standing ovation, some of the audience members were taking pictures of the pianist. Furious, he grabs the microphone and says: “I’m not going to talk about the assholes who are aiming their smartphones at me. I just have one question for them: why did you come?” © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Decades after they were recorded, the eight volumes of the Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Complete American Songbook series became timeless relics in jazz history and of 20 th century music in general. The idea for this immense project was originally proposed by producer Norman Granz, who was the singer’s manager as well as founder of the record label Verve. The first volume, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook, was published in 1956 and delighted the public and critics alike – so much so that that same year Ella Fitzgerald followed up with this recording, devoted to the songbook by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart this time. As in the previous volume, Buddy Bregman, a gifted protégé of Granz who was just 25 years old at the time, conducted the orchestra and arrangements. The music in this album has a luxurious feel and oozes sensuality but Bregman’s strings never once overpower Ella’s rich and sensual voice. As for the more up-tempo tracks like the famous The Lady is a Tramp, that’s when the singer proves to us why she was crowned the queen of swing. The musicians who played in her August 1956 sessions in Los Angeles were as ever, the crème de la crème of West Coast jazz, including trumpeters Pete Candoli and Maynard Ferguson, saxophonists Bud Shank and Bob Cooper, and guitarist Barney Kessel, to name but a few. Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook was a greater success than her songbook dedicated to Cole Porter due to the sheer popularity of the New-York duo’s songs. Ella continued her project in the years that followed, with albums revisiting the repertoires of Duke Ellington in 1957, Irving Berlin in 1958, George and Ira Gershwin in 1959 Harold Arlen in 1961, Jerome Kern in 1963 and Johnny Mercer in 1964. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

In 2013, Chick Corea teamed up with a couple of gold-standard rhythmists - Christian McBride on the double bass and Brian Blade on drums - with whom he recorded Trilogy, a brilliant live album which saw him blend his own repertoire with classic standards by Thelonious Monk, Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein, Kurt Weil, Irving Berlin & co. Just as the title indicates, Trilogy 2 repeats the exercise: same cast, same idea, same great result. Of course, the relationship between the three of them has been consolidated over the years. And while Corea’s piano remains one of the best of his generation, it’s the McBride/Blade tandem that really shines as a creative stroke of genius. The accuracy of their interventions and punctuations are staggering, never off-kilter and never over the top. Finally, the repertoire is a touch more original than on the previous Trilogy, with Steve Swallow’s Eiderdown, Monk’s Crepuscule with Nellie, 500 Miles High by Return to Forever, Lotus Blossom by Billy Strayhorn as well as Pastime Paradise by Stevie Wonder. © Max Dembo/Qobuz

Decades after they were recorded, the eight volumes of the Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Complete American Songbook series became timeless relics in jazz history and of 20 th century music in general. The idea for this immense project was originally proposed by producer Norman Granz, who was the singer’s manager as well as founder of the record label Verve. The first volume, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook, was published in 1956 and delighted the public and critics alike – so much so that that same year Ella Fitzgerald followed up with this recording, devoted to the songbook by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart this time. As in the previous volume, Buddy Bregman, a gifted protégé of Granz who was just 25 years old at the time, conducted the orchestra and arrangements. The music in this album has a luxurious feel and oozes sensuality but Bregman’s strings never once overpower Ella’s rich and sensual voice. As for the more up-tempo tracks like the famous The Lady is a Tramp, that’s when the singer proves to us why she was crowned the queen of swing. The musicians who played in her August 1956 sessions in Los Angeles were as ever, the crème de la crème of West Coast jazz, including trumpeters Pete Candoli and Maynard Ferguson, saxophonists Bud Shank and Bob Cooper, and guitarist Barney Kessel, to name but a few. Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook was a greater success than her songbook dedicated to Cole Porter due to the sheer popularity of the New-York duo’s songs. Ella continued her project in the years that followed, with albums revisiting the repertoires of Duke Ellington in 1957, Irving Berlin in 1958, George and Ira Gershwin in 1959 Harold Arlen in 1961, Jerome Kern in 1963 and Johnny Mercer in 1964. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Thanks to the Latin-inflected title track, Children of Sanchez became another huge hit for Chuck Mangione. The title song even earned him a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, and serious jazz listeners will spot a problem with that award -- it was for pop, not jazz. That, of course, is an accurate assessment of Mangione's music, since there isn't much improvisation on the album at all. Instead, there's a selection of Spanish and Latin-flavored instrumentals, arranged as if to give the impression that the album is a song cycle. If so, it's a song cycle/concept album that doesn't go anywhere. Nevertheless, there's enough pleasant music here to satisfy fans of his pop stylings. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo