Trombonist Ryan Keberle's Collectiv Do Brasil presents "Considerando" the music of Edu Lobo

Ryan Keberle's Collectiv Do Brasil Considerando 

The trombonist Ryan Keberle has always had a deep connection to the music of Brazil. He claims to have been smitten by it when he first heard music from the Brazilian singer Elis Regina decades ago. Regina became renowned for her song "Arrastão" written by Edu Lobo and Vinicius de Moraes. 

Elis Regina in Teatro da Praia 1969 (photo credit unknown)

These songwriters, along with other trailblazers,- Ivan Lins, Milton Nascimento, and Toninho Horta- were making music that was an amalgam of Brazilian folk and pop music with jazz sensibilities. The results were creative and captured the soul of many worldwide musicians as well as the general public who fell in love with their sensuous beauty.  

Keberle first met the Brazilian members of his first Collectiv do Brasil back in 2017 when he took a trip to Brazil and ran into three musicians- pianist Felipe Silveira, bassist Thiago Alves, and drummer Paulinho Vicente-who all had a passion for this moving music and found a kindred spirit in the trombonist. In 2019 they released the first album Sonhos da Esquina, which drew from the music of Milton Nascimento and Toninho Horta. On Keberle's latest release, his current Collectiv do Brasil continues with Keberle on trombone and arrangements, Felipe Silveira on piano and arrangements, drummer Paulinho Vicente, and the bass chair now being held by Felipe Brisola. This time the music is predominantly based on the music of Edu Lobo, still going strong at the age of seventy-nine. Of the ten compositions, six are from Lobo, "Blackbird" by Lennon and McCartney is given a Brazilian take, "Be" is by drummer Vicente and "Edu," written specifically for this album and a homage to Lobo, and "Gallop" a song formerly played with Keberle's Catharsis group, are both from the trombonist.

The music is performed with authenticity and reverence. These four musicians find common ground in their ability to fluidly improvise on this music with eerie intuition. This is Keberle's musical love letter to Lobo. His trombone is agile, voice-like, at times plaintive, and always emotive in a way that brings life to this music. Silveira creates some gorgeous waves of piano work that are perfectly responsive to his bandmates and add depth to the music.  Brisola's bass pulses with a throb-like humanity and Vicente creates a gorgeous canopy of rhythm over the melodies.

One of the highlights of this album is the title cut, this group's languishingly beautiful version of Lobo's "Considerando."  Keberle plays with superb restraint. He is a master of tone and attack, and here his artful trombone creates an air of wistful melancholy that can make the listener's heart simply break. Silveira's minimal piano solo is equally played with reverence and feeling and Brisola's bass bellows with large, full, accentuated notes. 

Keberle's "Edu" is another joy. A dynamic joining of Brazilian lyricism with a jazz treatment. The music has a driving pulse on which Keberle improvises in a creatively bellowing way throughout. The three Brazilians create a pushing, probing rhythm that has a dancing flow to it. Then the group segments the flow with rhythmic breaks and Keberle's trombone navigates through it all with the facile aplomb of a capoeirista.

"Zanzibar" is a spectacular display of how precisely conversational these four can be. The music has an infectious rhythm to it, some spicy tradeoffs, and there is a wonderful piano solo by Silveira and some boisterous percussion from Vicente. 

"Casa Forte/Canto Triste," which means strong house/sad corner, was written by Lobo, Lani Hall, and Vinicius Demoraes, and has a memorable melody that is played beautifully by Keberle's ascending and descending trombone lines. Silveira again shows his deep understanding of this music in both his accompaniment and soloing.

You will find your favorites in the above or in the remaining music like the ballad "Toada," Keberle's Brazilinized "Gallop, "Pra Dizer Adeus," "Even Now," "Be" or this group's take on the Beatles "Blackbird." No matter, if you enjoy well thought out and played Brazilian music there is something here in Ryan Keberle's Collectiv Do Brasil"s Considerando for everyone to savor and enjoy. 

  

Charlie Hunter Trio "Let the Bells Ring On"

Charlie Hunter Trio:  Let The Bells Ring On  CHT Publishing 2015

Charlie Hunter : Seven  String Guitar
Curtis Fowlkes: Trombone
Bobby Pevite : Drums & cymbals

Charlie Hunter

After first previewing parts of this album on Soundcloud I found myself going back to it again and again for the pure enjoyability factor. This is folksy, blues oriented roots music. Played in a frills free, unadulterated style that is both honest and endearing. Hunter has an inherent sense of how to make his seven string guitar sing  and Fowlkes gruff trombone voice is the perfect compliment to the Hunter gusty aesthetic. Traps master Bobby Previte plays in the pocket with unadorned punctuality and confident saunter. The music is gritty and cries out to you as being from the heart and the heartland, at times stinging, at times whimsical. A fun album you'll find yourself going back to this tableaux of songs for seconds. Check this one out.

Natalie Cressman's Turn The Sea: Is this the course of Indie-Jazz?

It is becoming an increasing cliché to talk about music being genre-crossing as it seems almost every week I come across music that defies categorization.  After reading many interviews by some of the most accomplished practitioners of contemporary , improvisational based music, often lumped together in a category labeled “ jazz" ( link to  my review here of Radhika Philip’s book of interviews titled Being Here), it becomes apparent that most musicians shun having their music pigeon-holed by  labels at all.

Along comes Turn The Sea, a new album from the twenty-two year old trombonist Natalie Cressman, who also happens to sing and compose,  and you realize how labels become a waste of time. Ms. Cressman comes from a musical family- a jazz vocalist mother and a trombone playing father-so it was a natural progression for the young woman to explore her own musical career. Her father was a one-time member of the band Santana as well as a touring member of the jamb band Phish. Admittedly, Ms. Cressman had a distinct advantage when her father decided to quite touring with Phish and suggested his daughter to replace him in the brass section. She was just eighteen at the time. Getting a once in a lifetime opportunity is one thing but making it on tour as a professional musician and completing an education at Manhattan School of Music is a feat few could handle at such a young age. She certainly seems to have managed nicely.

 Turn the Sea incorporates many diverse elements including Ms. Cressman’s trombone, her compositional tendency toward storytelling  and her beguiling voice. Ms. Cressman’s voice has an indie-folk, softly spoken sound- a modern version of Jacqui McShee comes to mind- and she harmonizes with herself nicely through overdubs, especially on Bon Iver’s “Blindsided,”  one of only two tunes on the album that are not her own compositions. 

The  music is expertly played by her band Jonathan Stein on acoustic and electric bass, Gabe Schnider on guitar, Samora Pinderhughes on keyboards, Ivan Rosenberg on trumpet, Steven Lugerner on flute, clarinet and bass clarinet , James Casey on tenor saxophone, Michael Mitchell on drums and of course Ms. Cressman on voice and trombone. 

The music is well conceived exploring multiple rhythmic patterns, adept arrangements and vocals that linger hauntingly in their purposeful unpretentious beauty. The result is a surprisingly fresh approach that incorporates some of the best elements of jazz and indie music and defies categorization. 

Natalie Cressman

As a brass player herself, Ms. Cressman is well aware of the impact a good brass and reed section can lend to a song when incorporated into the mix effectively. To her credit she uses the various voices in her ensemble to great effect especially  on the opening of the title tune “Turn the Sea.”   The synchronous front line playing of reed and brass lend the song a jazz sensibility and cues the listener to be on the lookout for creative arrangements.

"Fortune’s Fool” is propelled by an interesting rhythmic pattern developed nicely by Stein’s serpentine bass lines, Mitchell’s syncopated percussive drive and the ethereal keyboard work of Pinderhughes.  This song utilizes echoed guitar chords and a dancing flute to give it a light atmospheric sound accentuated by the airy Celleste sounding Rhodes work by Pinderhughes and Cressman’s deft vocalizations.

Cressman’s successful reworking of the Bon Iver song “Blindsided” is the most Indie sounding of the songs on the album. Cressman utilizes overdubs of her own mid-ranged voice juxtaposed against some tasty bass clarinet work by Steven Lugerner to great effect in the chorus. This opens to a poignantly played trombone solo that is surrounded by dancing reeds. Jonathan Stein’s acoustic bass anchors the song with a large firm tone throughout.

“New Moon” is a mixture of modal groove, Ms. Cressman’s storytelling accentuated by flute and reed orchestration and  West African inspired chants and rhythms. One might suspect the mixture could tend toward the schizophrenic, but Ms. Cressman manages to make the seemingly disparate elements work quite well together. At times on this song, when she harmonizes with her own voice, she sounds strongly reminiscent of the Polish singer Basia Trzetrzelewska, but the music is a prime example of a blurring of genres.

On Hanne Hukkeberg’s “Do Not As I Do,” perhaps the most melodic of the songs on the cd, the cautionary lyrics are recited by Cressman who talks of past mistakes without judgment and no regrets. Her voice is light and confident as she sings the chorus with an innocent beauty. 

“Checkout Time,” uses multiple overdubs of Cressman’s voice to create an eerie repeating rhythmic pattern over which she sings the main lines accompanied only by Rhodes. A deeply echoed voice is electronically enhanced as she sings accompanied by Gabe Schnider’s sparse guitar. The song has a an electronically enhanced minstrel-like quality to it, but doesn’t seem to be fully realized.

“Winter Chill” is Ms. Cressman’s most pop oriented of the songs on this album. The lyrical content of the song is predictably about a lost love and the orchestration is the least daring of her compositions,  the chorus being the most memorable part.

On “Stolen Away” Ms. Cressman returns to the rhythmic influence of West Africa. Mr. Schnider keeps the beat with his syncopated rhythm guitar as Ms. Cressman gives us a taste of her musical muscle on a rousing trombone solo.  The band creates an irresistibly danceable groove that is only reinforced by Ms. Cressman’s repeated catchy vocal refrain of “Stolen Away.” This one could be prime for repeat radio play.

The finale is an electronically produced version of the title tune “Turn The Sea,” a remix version produced by the band’s bassist Jonathan  Stein. Ms Cressman’s trombone solo is drenched in electronic sounds and synthesized sounds have been incorporated throughout. The production sounds a bit too busy for me and I prefer the original version.

Though a bit uneven Turn The Sea is for the most part an enjoyable offering and deserves a serious listen.  It just goes to prove that improvisational music can successfully take off in any number of directions and it’s up to us to be open enough to consider the possibilities.