| Criss Cross Jazz new vinyl release August 2023 | Here
is the new Criss Cross Jazz vinyl release for August 2023, which will
be released on August 18. All details can be found on the
website: |
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CRISS 1410 LP Mike Moreno - Standards From
Film |
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Like a well – wrought character in a Hollywood movie,
Standards From Film, guitarist Mike
Moreno’s fourth Criss Cross album,
exists atop a solid, cogent back story. Recorded in December 2021, when
the world and New York City – Houston-born Moreno’s home
for more than two decades – were no longer on COVID lockdown, it
documents the leader’s exhaustive investigations into the provenance
of ten iconic standards that, as he puts it, “are the summer jazz
workshop tunes” – they say you have to learn these songs if
you want to be a jazz musician. You learn them very young or in the
beginning days of your journey into this music. The
Standards From Film album was released on CD (Criss 1410) in
October 2022. From August 18, 2023 the album will also be
available as a 2-LP set on 180 grams black vinyl with gatefold cover,
as part of the Criss Cross Jazz vinyl (re-)release
plan. Joined by a rhythm section of generational contemporaries, each at
the top of the jazz pyramid, (Sullivan Fortner, piano;
Matt Brewer, bass; Obed Calvaire, drums)
Moreno deploys a variety of attacks and tonalities
to create dynamic tension in lyric declamations that he delivers with
his signature plush, resonant tone, sublime articulation, and harmonic
intelligence. |
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PREVIOUS MIKE MORENO
RELEASES |
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CRISS 1402 LP Lage Lund - Terrible
Animals |
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Terrible Animals is perhaps the most
compositionally ambitious and daringly performed of Lage
Lund's five albums on Criss Cross Jazz. The
Terrible Animals album was released on CD (Criss 1402)
in February 2019. From July 14, 2023 the album will also be
available as a 2-LP set on 180 grams black vinyl with gatefold cover,
as part of the Criss Cross Jazz vinyl (re-)release
plan. Joined by a never-before-convened, top-of-the-pyramid rhythm
section (Sullivan Fortner, piano; Larry
Grenadier, bass; Tyshawn Sorey, drums)
the 39-year-old presents ten far-flung originals that elicit the full
measure of their creativity over the 68-minute program, spurring Lund --
who makes ingenious use of effects within his flow -- to some of his most
dynamic and varied playing on record.
The album was recorded on
April 27, 2018 at the Systems Two Studio in New York. Recording engineer
Mike Marciano also did the editing, mixing and mastering
at Systems Two. He also did the vinyl mastering for this 2LP issue. The
cover drawing on this gatefold 2LP set was made by Robbin
Veldman. |
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PREVIOUS LAGE LUND
RELEASES |
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CRISS 1416 CD Manuel Valera -
Vessel |
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Manuel Valera
advises his students at New York University to write music every
day. “I tell them that composition is essentially another
instrument – the more you practice, the better you get at
it,” says the 42-year-old piano master, who, by his count,
has generated some 200 recorded pieces since he entered the fray
in the early aughts. Vessel, Valera’s
second album for Criss Cross, showcases eight recent
works, each “honoring a different person who’s influenced my
music.” Valera made it in January 2023, nine years after presenting
another eight originals on In Motion (Criss 1372) which
featured a slamming iteration of his New Cuban Express ensemble, whose
eponymous first CD had earned a 2013 Grammy nomination for “Best
Latin Jazz Album.” The pieces on that straight-eighth oriented
session mixed elements from various Afro-Cuban dialects with postbop,
fusion jazz, funk and R&B, incorporating intricate beat modulation,
odd meters, and intriguing ensemble color. On In Motion, as
on most of his 16 albums since 2004, Valera established the compositions
as “the complete framework for the improvisations –
although the solos, of course, are also important.” But here,
as indicated by the title, Valera diverges, constructing pieces that
are “vessels for improvising, like they wrote them on the old
Blue Note records. You play the tune, you blow over the tune, then you
play the tune again – the improvisation is as important as the
composition. A lot is going on, but there’s still that connection
to the older tunes – and a couple sound like they could have
been from way back.” The album was recorded January 26,
2023 at the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio in NY. Recording engineer
Mike Marciano also did the editing, mixing and mastering at Systems Two in
NY. |
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| CRISS 1415 CD David Hazeltine - Blues For
Gerry |
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Pianist David Hazeltine has a history with
Criss Cross. To be specific, between 1995 and 2010,
Gerry Teekens, the label’s founder, presented eight
albums on which Hazeltine led trios, quartets and quintets featuring
his impeccable, individualistic pianism, original compositions and
arrangements; another five with the cooperative all-star sextet One
For All (tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, trombonist Steve Davis,
trumpeter Jim Rotondi, bassists Peter Washington or John Webber, and
drummer Joe Farnsworth), whose grooving, harmonically acute charts
bear his stamp; and another 17 as a sideman with the aforementioned
luminaries, trumpeter Brian Lynch, alto saxophonist Jim Snidero,
and other high-level jazzfolk who now hold pride of place in the
hardcore jazz ecosystem. Hazeltine returns to the fold with Blues
For Gerry, his first Criss Cross
leader date since Inversions (2010, Criss 1326),
a lovely quintet date that included Alexander and vibraphonist
Steve Nelson. Recorded in a single six-hour session on December
1, 2022, it’s his third state of the art trio recital for
Criss Cross with modern masters Peter
Washington and Joe Farnsworth, following
the equally accomplished Perambulation (2005, Criss
1276) and Close To You (2003, Criss
1247). “Gerry Senior liked those albums, and his son Jerry Teekens,
Jr. asked me if I’d put together that same trio,” Hazeltine
said in March, a day after returning from a 20-day tour of primarily
one-nighters in Europe with drummer Bernd Reiter and bassist Aldo
Zunino. “I have fond memories of working for Gerry. He was
a pretty hands-off producer, and let me do what I wanted. His one
request was always, ‘there’s got to be a blues; it’s
not swinging if there’s no blues.’ So I wrote Blues for
Gerry.” |
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CRISS 1414 CD Alex Sipiagin - Mel's
Vision |
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Since he emigrated to the United States
from Russia in 1991, Alex Sipiagin has earned an exalted
international reputation as a no-technical-limits improvisor, sustaining a
gorgeous sound throughout the trumpet’s registral range, navigating
harmonic and rhythmic complexity with precision, passion, and abiding
lyricism. Most of Sipiagin’s 12 previous albums for Criss
Cross also showcase his contrapuntal, harmonically comprehensive
compositions, full of interesting melodic twists and turns. On them,
he projects the same voice that he improvises with but written out
for more instruments. For his 13th Criss Cross date,
Mel’s Vision, the 55-year-old master –
joined by A-listers tenor saxophonist Chris Potter,
pianist David Kikoski,, bassist Matt
Brewer and drummer Johnathan Blake
– contributes two wonderful originials. But Alex addresses
the session primarily as an opportunity to focus on interpreting
music by others – a song by Potter, a Ukrainian folk song
and four rarely covered gems from the jazz canon. The project
gestated after the 2016 release of Moments Captured (Criss
1395), when Criss Cross founder Gerry
Teekens suggested that Sipiagin record a standards
album. Before a contract could be executed, Teekens passed away in
2019. When his son, Jerry Teekens, Jr, reestablished
the label, Sipiagin recorded Swing On This (Criss
1406), the fifth Criss Cross date by Opus
5, the cooperative quintet in which he interacts with tenor
saxophonist Seamus Blake, pianist David Kikoski, bassist Boris
Kozlov, and drummer Donald Edwards, all Criss Cross
leaders and alumni of the Mingus Big Band. He took advantage of that
occasion to remind Teekens fils of the standards project, and received a
go-ahead. |
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| CRISS 1413 CD Michael Feinberg - Blues
Variant |
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An intriguing element of Michael Feinberg’s
superb Criss Cross debut is that the leader could
easily have titled it “Bassist In The Background” (Fans of
Duke Ellington’s wonderful 1960 LP "Pianist In The Background" will
know what I mean). Throughout Blues Variant
– which includes six tunefully percolating originals by Feinberg,
one by tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger, and one by
pianist Leo Genovese – the 35-year-old bass
maestro hews to the mantra, “If you want to hear me solo, come to
a gig, where I often play a solo on every tune”. “I’m
serving the music,” Feinberg continues. “What I appreciate
about a bass player is how they make the other people in the band
sound. I love hearing the soloistic abilities of Christian McBride,
John Patitucci, Dave Holland and the people I idolize, but they’re
amazing because, when they play, it feels incredible and they push their
bandmates to be the best versions of themselves or go beyond what they
think they can do.” As another example, Feinberg mentions Jimmy
Garrison, who triangulated between McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones with the
“spiritually transcendent” John Coltrane Quartet between
1961 and 1965. “He rarely plays a solo, but you don’t get
the Coltrane quartet with anyone else. So I don’t care about
the solos, or being on top of the mix to indicate ‘this is a bass
player’s record.’ I play a ton of notes. I’m playing the
whole time. Can’t miss it.” Feinberg’s remarks on the Garrison
effect carry a certain gravitas; since the early 2010s, when he did The
Elvin Jones Project, he’s delved into Coltrane’s repertoire
on its own terms of engagement on numerous gigs, most of them featuring
Preminger playing tenor saxophone and Ian Froman on drums. On the
pan-stylistic Blues Variant, he connects
with the spirit of the great drum griot via the presence on three
intense selections of Elvin alumnus Dave Liebman,
Preminger’s teacher during student years. who has often
employed Froman. Feinberg’s introduction to Liebman’s
singular sound was Earth Jones, a 1982 Elvin-led release with
Liebman, trumpeter Terumaso Hino, pianist Kenny Kirkland and
bassist George Mraz. “I know every note of it,” Feinberg
says. “I’ve been a fan of Dave’s playing for a long
time.” |
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