New In Music This Week: August 15th:

Welcome to the weekend and New In Music This Week: August 15^th.

There isn’t a truly major name amongst any of these recordings. But there are artists you will enjoy getting to know on this week’s list.

Here’s my top pick:

JAZZ: CAT & THE HOUNDS – Colin Hancock’s Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell – Turtle Bay Records

The artwork for this wonderful album gives you a sense of what you are about to experience: Black blues and jazz straight out of the early 1920s. Catherine Russell is front and center looking like she stepped out of the period.

More importantly, the music sounds like it came from the early 1920s – albeit with much better recording techniques.

Hancock, who plays cornet and saxophone, curated the songs selected for and performed on Cat & The Hounds. He’s joined by Evan Christopher on multiple reeds; Ahmad Johnson on drums; Kerry Lewis on tuba; Jerron Paxton on multiple instruments and vocals and Dion Tucker on trombone.

The press releases says that for this album “they reimagine the sound of a ‘lost’ Creole territory band – one that never recorded but left a profound cultural imprint.”

Some of the songs were written by names you’ll recognize like Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Noble Sissle. You might have heard some of the original recordings by the likes of Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and more.

Russell and the Jazz Hounds are wonderful musical partners who seem to be having the time of their lives performing this music.

This is a loving and well thought out record that is guaranteed to entertain you. My recommendation is you listen to Cat & The Hounds and then go back and listen to some of the original recordings.

Here are the other fine recordings that are New In Music This Week: August 15^th:

CLASSICAL: PIANO QUINTETS – Peter Donohoe/I Musicanti/Leon Bosch – Somm Recordings

Are you familiar with composers Percy Godfrey, Ivor Hodgson, John McCabe and Richard Walthew? They are all British composers. Hodgson is the only one living. 

The album opens with Godfrey’s Piano Quintet in E flat major. The composer received an award in 1899 for this work. That is followed by Hodgson’s Piano Quintet. The recording features pianist Peter Donohoe (a member of I Musicanti) for whom Hodgson has composed a concerto. At times mysterious and at other times whimsical, the four movements are named for four inns.

Walthew’s Phantasy Quintet is up next. It’s a single movement that makes ample space for pianist Donohoe. Closing out this recording is McCabe’s Sam Variations which was inspired by the composer’s theme for a 1973 television series named Sam. 

I Musicanti’s members, in addition to Donohoe, are double bassist Leon Bosch, violist Robert Smissen, cellist Urusla Smith and violinist Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay.

Anyone who loves chamber music will want to discover these four composers and their work.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: FOUR SPIRITS CONCERTO – Abel Selaocoe/Aurora Orchestra/Nicolas Collon – Warner Classics

Cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe’s Four Spirits is his first cello concerto. It’s unlike any other cello concerto you have heard. In addition to the Aurora Orchestra (under the baton of Nicolas Collon) and Selaocoe’s cello, percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger and the audience in the concert hall are part of this live recording. Not to applaud. To sing.

Selaocoe sings, plays the cello and gets the audience to sing out improvisations that perfectly fit into the concerto. 

South African rhythms, sounds, hymns and folk music, along with Selaocoe’s concerto, all become one. It’s a fascinating combination that is guaranteed to appeal to even non-classical music fans (particularly those who are familiar with The Lion King and/or Paul Simon’s Graceland – though it bears no similarities to either). This is a wonderful blend of music and styles becoming something wholly its own.

This live recording was captured earlier this year in London. 

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: HIK – Translations – Sono Luminus

And now for something completely different and good. Organist Arngerõur María Árnadóttir and violinist Una Sveinbjarnardóttir might make for an unusual pairing given the instruments they play. But it is precisely that uniqueness that makes HIK so interesting.

Both women composed the 8 tracks. Some of the songs were improvised on the spot. The press notes indicate which ones those are, but I don’t think you’ll be able to tell just listening to them. Árnadóttir and Sveinbjarnardóttir so thoroughly trust and listen to each other, that whether formally written out or improvised, the music is utterly compelling.

Three of the tracks also feature Davíõ Þór Jónsson on piano and Skúli Sverrisson on bass.

HIK is a quite special album well worth your time.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: PROJECT ENCORE, VOL. 2 – Timothy McAllister and Liz Ames – Neuma Records

This is a follow up to the first volume of new works composed for saxophonist McAllister and pianist Ames. The concept behind both albums is to add new works to the repertoire to freshen up the options for these artists to perform in concert. It can’t always be the same pieces everyone else does, right?

The album opens with the three-part Book Book Nova by Wynton Marsalis. It is followed by the playful McAllister’s Ceilidh by Adam Silverman. Other highlights include Adam Schoenberg’s Dance, Jennifer Higdon’s A Fine Line and Sean Hickey’s Mutually Assured Destruction. 

All 19 tracks are showcases for these artists. I’m more familiar with McAllister who can twist and turn his multitude of saxophones into any shape or form a composer challenges him to do. Ames is a stunningly-talented pianist called on to perform very challenging work.

Based on this recording, McAllister and Ames certainly can claim they’ve accomplished their mission. All these pieces would make great additions to any concert program.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: WOODLAND SONGS – Dover Quartet – Curtis Studio

For all the controversy surrounding DEI these days, I’m so glad that the performing arts continues to explore under-represented composers and artists. Woodland Songs offers the world premiere of the five-part work of the same name by Chickasaw American composer Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha’ Tate.

Rattle Songs, a six-part work by Pura Fé, is newly arranged by Tate. Pura Fé is a member of the a cappella group Ulali which is comprised of Native women.

Both these works are persuasively performed and, more importantly, are fascinating and compelling works.

For those who want to wrap things up with something more familiar, the album concludes with Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, B. 179 “American.” Of course, I think there’s a reason that work was selected to help round out a full picture of the North American identity.

JAZZ: SOMEONE TO SOMEONE – PlainsPeak – Irabbagast Records

If the record label name seems familiar, it is because Plainspeak is the new quartet formed by saxophonist Jon Irabagon. He’s brought along some old friends for this album that celebrates the city Irabagon calls home and where he grew up: Chicago. Those friends are drummer Dana Hall, trumpeter Russ Johnson and bassist Clark Sommers.

The level of interaction amongst these four musicians is the best representation of their friendship and their talent.

The song titles will resonate with anyone who has spent time in the Windy City and knows The Green Mill, Malört alcohol and the miracle of the Cubs finally breaking their World Series drought.

More importantly, the music will resonate with anyone who loves modern jazz played extraordinarily well.

JAZZ: TIME WOULDN’T WAIT – Dara Starr Tucker – Green Hill Records

One way for me to gauge how much I like a singer is to hear how he or she approaches songs we’ve heard a million times. Not being familiar with Dara Starr Tucker, I immediately played Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Then I jumped ahead to I Have Dreamed from The King and I. That’s all it took. 

I went back to the beginning and had a wonderful time listening to Tucker’s singing and her songwriting. Seven of the 11 tracks are her originals. Her song Brick Wall is destined to be covered by other singers. It’s a killer song about getting over a relationship.

Tucker’s band includes Vicente Archer on bass, Christian Euman and Marcus Finnie on drums, Larry Goldings on piano, Simon Moullier on vibraphone, Rod McGaha on trumpet and Gary Versace on organ and piano.

Don’t be skeptical like I was. Start at the beginning and go on this moving journey with Dara Starr Tucker.

MUSICALS: JUST IN TIME – Original Broadway Cast Recording – Atlantic Records

The best cast records of musicals serve two purposes: a great souvenir for those who have seen the show and a way of seducing those who haven’t seen a show yet to buy tickets.

Just in Time’s OBCR serves both purposes wonderfully. It also helps that many of us saw Jonathan Groff’s performance on the Tony Awards to have already instigated that seduction.

Groff plays Bobby Darin in this musical which is a smash hit. Listening to the record you can hear why. He’s joined by Erika Henningsen as Sandra Dee, Gracie Lawrence as Connie Francis, Michele Pawk as Polly Walden, Joe Barbara as multiple characters and more.

All the songs you expect are here including This Could Be The Start of Something Big, Beyond the Sea, Splish Splash, Who’s Sorry Now and Mack the Knife.

The energy leaps off this recording. I’m sure that is a fraction of what this show is like in person. Consider me seduced. You will be, too.

MUSICALS/VOCALS: LIVE IN LONDON – Marisha Wallace – Westway Music and Center Stage Records

Marisha Wallace is currently on Broadway with Billy Porter in the revival of Kander & Ebb’s musical Cabaret. She plays, of course, Sally Bowles.

When you listen to this electrifying recording you might wonder if she’s too big a voice to play a second-rate entertainer like Bowles. But her ability to put a song across with both powerful vocals and first-rate acting means she’s probably just fine not wanting to go out like Elsie.

Wallace’s other stage credits, represented on Live in London, include Effie White in Dreamgirls, Ado Annie in Oklahoma, Becky in Waitress, Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray and Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls.

This is a full concert. Not a cabaret performance. There are two acts with 22 songs. She says early in the concert that she grew up in church. Not that we couldn’t figure that out form the way she sings some of Broadway’s best-known songs along with others made famous by Whitney Houston, Etta James and Tina Turner.

I loved this album. I also hope that in addition to recording the concert there is a full-length video coming out sometime very very soon.

A QUICK NOTE FOR VINYL COLLECTORS:

Blue Note’s Classic Vinyl series has issued new LPs of Wayne Shorter’s The Soothsayer from 1965 and Lee Morgan’s The Procrastinator from 1967. They are both great albums!

That’s all for New In Music This Week: August 15^th.

Enjoy your weekend.

Enjoy the music!

Main Photo: Part of the album art for Cat & The Hounds (Courtesy Turtle Bay Records)