JUN 29 HARMOLODIC MONK Album Release Event Whynot Jazz Room

HARMOLODIC MONK Album Release Event

Whynot Jazz Room, Sunday, July29, 7:30PM 14 Christopher St, NYC

UR9953.CoverA_Flat_for CDB

Harmolodic Monk is matt Lavelle (trumpet, alto clarinet, flugelhorn) and John Pietaro (vibes, percussion). The pair will be performing a set of selections from their Unseen Rain Records debut album, one which explores some of the greatest compositions of Thelonious Monk by way of the expansive visions of Ornette Coleman with special guests Jack DeSalvo on banjo and Tom Cabrera on frame drum. According to the album’s producer, Jack DeSalvo:

“In the work of both Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk, the dichotomy of ancient, pre-western approaches and extreme modernism live side-by-side so comfortably that one mistakes one for the other. Like the story that Ornette told of performing in a psychiatric hospital; once he started playing and looked out into the audience he couldn’t distinguish between the doctors and the patients.

Bëla Bartók believed that new music must have deep roots in folk music, music of the earth, chthonic in that sense. Besides virtuosity as servant to meaningful expression, communication and sensitive interplay, what Matt Lavelle and John Pietaro reveal to us through this many-layered concept of uncovering new secrets in Monk’s compositions via the Harmolodic highway is their profound understanding that the root of all this is the Blues.

Ornette’s view of the Blues, like his late friend Buckminster Fuller’s view of the world, is multi-dimensional, here imbued with both Monk’s and Ornette’s focus on personal expression. Matt and John provide an extended view into myriad musical possibilities when Harmolodic Monk is in the hands of two improvisational masters.”

This event is part of Andrea Wolper‘s Why Not Experiment? series.

Download HARMOLODIC MONK HERE

5 Stars for Pat Hall Time Remembered: The Music of Bill Evans UR9960

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Pat Hall Time Remembered: The Music of Bill Evans UR9960

Pat Hall embraces the spirit of Bill Evans with a unique vision and with great success!
Brent Black / www.criticaljazz.com
Bill Evans compositions are covered on a fairly regular basis. An entire release devoted to perhaps the greatest harmonic genius in improvisational music is not uncommon, a release that pushes the music forward is uncommon. Pat Hall has assembled a first rate trombone / organ trio to examine four Evans classics, a Rogers and Hart standard and two compositions from bassist Scott LaFaro and composer Earl Zindars who are both closely tied to the Evans legacy. The result is a more contemporary excursion down that rare harmonic road less traveled where Bill Evans became a legend.
The quiet reverence of Evans now is meticulously etched with soul, swing and a lyrical edge that takes these treasured compositions to the next level of possibilities rather than the same predictable formatted covers so often released. While Pat Hall could stand on stage with any ensemble, his ability to blend and gently guide this eclectic 4tet is worthy of special note. Greg “Organ Monk” Lewis is a critically acclaimed performer cut from the Larry Young mold while guitarist Marvin Sewell and drummer Mike Campenni provide the finesse necessary to help tie these compositions together. The arrangements are solid yet forward thinking while the execution is exemplary.
Admittedly, Bill Evans purists may at first balk at such an unorthodox attempt to pay tribute while the more harmonically in tune will be entranced at the possibilities that are always inside a beautiful melody.
Tracks: Gloria’s Step; Waltz For Debby; Spring Is Here; Elsa; Know What I Mean?; Time Remembered; Peri’s Scope.
Personnel: Pat Hall: Trombone; Greg “Organ Monk” Lewis: Hammon Organ; Marvin Sewell: Guitar; Mike Campenni: Drums.


Media Alert: Pat Hall – Time Remembered: The Music of Bill Evans (Unseen Rain UR9960) Street Date August 5,

Jim Eigo

June 17, 2014

Pat Hall: Trombone, Greg “Organ Monk” Lewis: Organ, Marvin Sewell: Guitar, Mike Campenni: Drums

http://www.unseenrainrecords.com/?p=880

CD Review:

See your review on the site

 

 Honoring Bill Evans, June 16, 2014By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)
This review is from: Time Remembered: The Music of Bill Evans (MP3 Music)William John Evans, known as Bill Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980), was an American jazz pianist and composer who mostly worked in a trio setting. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, and is considered by some to have been the most influential post-World War II jazz pianist. Evans’s use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block chords, and trademark rhythmically independent, “singing” melodic lines continue to influence jazz pianists today. Unlike many other jazz musicians of his time, Evans never embraced new movements like jazz fusion or free jazz.Along with an extraordinary band – Greg “Organ Monk” Lewis on Hammond organ, Marvin Sewell on guitar and drummer Mike Campenni – Pat Hall takes a parallax view into the oeuvre of Bill Evans.

According to the liner notes by Chris Kelsey, “Pat Hall has done it. He’s substituted overt passion for Bill Evans’ quiet reserve, impulsive chance taking for the pianist’s crystalline perfection. In place of the classic piano trio instrumentation so closely associated with Evans, he’s used something nearly it’s polar opposite. Some jazz musicians inspire such slavish devotion that their oeuvre becomes inviolable, something not to be interpreted but rather worshipped, something so precious that any stylistic deviation is akin to heresy. Bill Evans is that type of musician: a supremely gifted artist, certainly, but someone whose creative contribution is occasionally threatened to be subsumed by the slavering reverence bestowed on him as a jazz icon. In a sense then, Pat Hall’s unconventional essaying of compositions by Evans can be seen as an act of almost quixotic bravery. Bill Evans’ compositions re-imagined for a band led by a trombonist – and with the keyboard chair occupied by a Hammond organist, no less! Were the fictional barrister Jackie Chiles an Evans-o-phile, he might call such an endeavor “seditious, pernicious, avaricious … inauspicious!” Pat is like the “Everybody” in the album title. He digs Bill Evans. Digs, but doesn’t worship, in the same way that it’s possible to love one’s parent but not want to live life the same way or make the exact same choices.’

The ensemble again is Pat Hall, trombone, Greg “Organ Monk” Lewis, organ, Marvin Sewell, guitar, and Mike Campenni, drums and the tracks are:
Gloria’s Step
Waltz For Debby
Spring is Here
Elsa
Know what I Mean?
Time Remembered
Peri’s Scope

You’re bound to remember time remembered. Grady Harp, June 14

 

Media Contact

Jim Eigo – Jazz Promo Services,  272 State Route 94 South #1 Warwick, NY 10990-3363, Ph: 845-986-1677 / Fax: 845-986-1699 Cell / text: 917-755-8960, Skype: jazzpromo jim@jazzpromoservices.com, www.jazzpromoservices.com