NOTICIAS

Ya disponible «Out Of The Bell Jar», el nuevo album de Isabella Lundgren

21 noviembre, 2019

El pasado mes de octubre salía al mercado el nuevo trabajo de la cantante y compositora sueca, Isabella Lundgren, bajo el título «Out Of The Bell Jar» (Ladybird). El album recoge una colección de temas de la discografía de Bob Dylan que Isabella ha llevado a su terreno magistralmente y nos los ofrece en clave de jazz. Las buenas críticas en Europa no han tardado en llegar.


«Isabella sale de su propia zona de seguridad, ¡y de qué manera!. Es palpable el amor por las letras y la música de Dylan en cada nota que canta.»

Su relación con Bob Dylan comenzó para impresionar a su primer gran amor, fanático de Dylan. De forma que, para impresionarlo, se propuso aprenderse algunas de las letras de las canciones del cantante norteamericano para para decírselas a ese chico que le gustaba en cuento se lo cruzara por los pasillos del colegio. Y se compró el album “The Times They Are a-Changin” (Columbia Records, 1964).

Unos años más tarde, Isabella Lundgren se mudó a Nueva York, donde conoció al músico de blues Brian Kramer. En abril de 2010, no tenían idea de que iban a colaborar en el disco de 2019 ahora publicado. El estadounidense Brian Kramer ha escrito la música para la letra de Isabella Lundgren para la canción principal «Out of the Bell Jar».

Brian Kramer me cuenta sobre su primera reunión: “Nos conocimos en el Café Vivaldi en Greenwich Village. Isabella trabajó allí. Era la noche antes de volver a su casa en Suecia.”

Brian actuaba en ese club un par de noches. “El dueño me preguntó si podíamos tocar algo juntos porque sabía que Isabella era cantante, así que preparamos un blues y fue absolutamente fantástico. La voz de Isabella sonó como una trompeta y sentimos la unidad a través de la música.”

Años después Isabella enviaría a Brian un mensaje de texto diciéndole que le gustaría que pusiera la música a la letra de una canción que acababa de escribir. Brian leyó esas líneas y buscó el ritmo de cada una de sus palabras. Quince minutos después ya tenía los acordes y una estructura para la canción. Grabó una demo con la melodía y se la enviaría a Isabella inmediatamente. Todo fue muy rápido. Este tema se convirtió en, «Out Of The Bell Jar», la canción principal del nuevo album que ahora se edita con título homónimo. Es el único tema que no es una versión de Dylan.

La letra de este tema no solo describe el «viaje» de la cantante nórdica, sino que también ha tejido títulos conocidos de composiciones de Dylan en el texto. La buena guitarra de Brian Kramer también mejora la sensación.

«Las otras interpretaciones de Isabella Lundgren de los seis temas de Bob Dylan que completan el album son también absolutamente magníficas. Su voz me cautiva y las palabras brotan de una manera completamente diferente a la que canta Dylan. El encuadre jazzístico de las canciones las convierte en algo completamente diferente del original. Que sean tan diferentes también es lo que las hace tan buenas. Se nota que Isabella Lundgren ama las letras y la música del músico de Minnesota. Extraordinario homenaje. Realmente espero que el propio Bob Dylan escuche este disco, ¡seguro que le encantaría!»

«Por supuesto, no hay otra calificación para darle a Isabella Lundgren y su álbum, «Out of the Bell Jar», que no sea un 10/10.»

– Pär Dahlerus [UppsalaNyheter]

 

Isabella Lundgren & Brian Kramer (Photo: Kenth Wångklev) Södra Teatern | Stockholm, 2019
NOTICIAS

Lista de los mejores albums de Jazz de 2018 – New York Times

6 diciembre, 2018

Por Giovanni Russonello.

La lista de este año reúne Some of the most trusted names in jazz and a host of innovative young disrupters brought cross-media collaborations and fresh approaches to the genre.

Here’s a grand reckoning with the most revered compositional voice in contemporary jazz. The first of three discs here is defined by the kinetic synergy between the saxophonist’s quartet and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The album isn’t complete without its accompanying graphic novel, written by Mr. Shorter and Monica Sly, and illustrated by Randy DuBurke.

For the past decade, Ambrose Akinmusire has played trumpet with a fresh style: elusive and rarely resolving, but also ruby-red and urgent. His newest album reminds us that his compositions can achieve the same balance of intimacy and vision.

Thrashing and full of impact but endlessly slippery, Logan Richardson’s two-electric-guitar quintet remains guided at every turn by his alto saxophone. No one plays the instrument with the same sweltering, swooning grace.

Esperanza Spalding took her time on this one, crafting a video album of millennial-size ambition, ranging from orchestral jazz with loquacious lyrics to therapeutic funk. Altogether, it’s a little like experiencing the ecstatic philosophy of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (her writings on, say, the interrelation of language, desire and physical texture) as sounds and moving images.

Thelonious Monk’s 100th birthday in 2017 brought a flood of tributes, but the most monumental statement of devotion came a year late. Across six discs, the guitarist Miles Okazaki covers every known Monk composition, honoring the composer’s crooked style and getting his guitar to sound just as resonant and embodied as Monk’s piano did.

Is it a brilliantly assembled suite of compositions for trio, or a loose, 30-minute improvisation? Either way, it’s low, dark and beautiful. And it feels like a guarantee that we’ll be talking about the pianist Sam Harris for a long time.

Three masters of improvising minimalism — the drummer Andrew Cyrille, the trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and the guitarist Bill Frisell — convene for the first time. Mr. Smith makes a humongous impact wherever he goes, and this album also works as a cooler companion to his own 2017 album “Najwa,” where he was surrounded by four guitars and two percussionists.

On this duo album, James Brandon Lewis honors John Coltrane by isolating parts of his compositions, diving into the source material with strident, ennobled conviction. Whether charging on the drum set or playing the hypnotic mbira, Chad Taylor knows where to find Mr. Lewis at his best.

On this veteran avant-garde pianist’s second album with Snowy Egret, the quintet moves with tenuous grace. You can easily hear a link between the plucky, migrating sound of this acoustic combo and the state of our imperiled natural world.

If Tony Williams is the biggest root influence on jazz drummers today, then more of them should honor his bombastic virtuosity with the same sense of joy and freshness that Justin Brown does. On his debut as a leader, he’s shrouded in synthesizers but never loses touch with hip-hop and gospel.

Two decades into its career, this power trio has hit a new stride. As ever, its murky, astringent music is something you can climb inside, a darkened lens through which to see the world.

The first recorded partnership between this drummer and pianist is an unofficial announcement of Carmen Staaf’s prodigious talent, and an uncommonly good collection of small-group jazz.

The luminary tenor saxophonist David Murray has long been both an avant-garde pacesetter and a guardian of tradition. That’s the case on this album (recorded live in Turkey), with Murray purring and teasing over a stellar quartet — and savoring his interactions with Saul Williams’s biting poetry.

On this solo performance, recorded in Venice a dozen years ago, the piano icon sounds uncommonly eager and open, while maintaining his poise.

A formidable trio album from one of the more versatile and underappreciated pianists in experimental music.

Drawn from four (heavily edited) live performances across the United States and Britain, this double album affirms the drummer and beatsmith’s position as a major figure in creative music. And it suggests that his Chicago-bred sound — woozy, glutinous, in medias res — could have an impact on local scenes around the world.

This double-sax quartet pays homage to Charlie Parker by cutting up, slowing down and disorganizing his compositions. There are many forms of interference here: the writing; the quirky recording style and occasional use of effects; the restless incursions of Jason Moran, jazz piano’s doyen.

John Hollenbeck’s composing for large ensemble is ambitious, but not beholden to complexity. This music is about fluidity and enchantment and, on the album’s piercing title track, loss.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer released two compelling albums at once (“Double Up, Plays Double Up Plus” is the other). On this one, he allows each of the 15 musicians in the ensemble to shine, sometimes on their own and often in a feisty tangle.

The reigning jazz vocalist of her generation is an intellectual virtuoso, an examiner of songs rather than simply an inhabitant of them. Accompanied by the pianist Sullivan Fortner, Cecile McLorin Salvant trains her magnifying glass on a range of tunes here: midcentury jazz, chanson, Aretha Franklin.

 

+VER ARTÍCULO ORIGINAL publicado en The New York Times, el 6 de diciembre de 2018.

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