Sam Coombes: Time Of Life (33Jazz Records)
Saxophonist Sam Coombes returns with his fifth album, a quartet set recorded in Paris in July 2024. It marks his return to tenor and soprano saxes after two albums focusing almost entirely on the alto sax; all the tunes are his bar one standard. As before, Time Of Life is urgent and driven, Coombes’s saxophone insistent in its melodic lines and harmonic explorations, notably in his impetus on the Coltrane-like North Of The North. Pianist Nico Morelli is likewise driven and inventive while gently lyrical on Maylis, bassist Yoni Zelnik and drummer Julien Charlet a fine and busy rhythm section. Forbearance showcases the band’s quieter side as Coombes’s soprano insinuates easily above them, while Light Of Day reveals the leader’s ability to tell a good melodic story over a gentle funky beat. The wistful title track provides an eloquent closer. Overall, this is a strong and committed set, and well worth seeking out.
Anouar Brahem: After The Last Sky (ECM 2838)
A new release from Tunisian oud player Anouar Braham is a rare event: its predecessor, Blue Maqams, appeared all of eight years ago in 2017. This recent, poignant album is titled after a line of verse by the late poet Mahmoud Darwish, often regarded as Palestine’s national poet, which asks “Where should we go after the last frontiers? / Where should the birds fly, after the last sky?” Chamber pieces for oud, cello, piano, and bass address that question as it resonates in these troubled times.
While drawing on the traditional modes of Arab music, Brahem continues to engage with the wider world, finding inspiration from jazz and elsewhere. The bassist here is Dave Holland, who first worked with Brahem on his Thimar album in 1998, for “Dave’s playing gives me wings,” as Brahem remarks. Joining him is pianist Django Bates – who first played alongside Holland on Blue Maqams – and newcomer cellist Anja Lechner, the first time Brahem has worked with a cellist.
It is Lechner who makes the opening and closing statements, but it is Bates whose voice is heard the clearest, playing an important, supportive role throughout that aids the flow of the music while gaining some space for his individual statements, notably his swirling, elegant solo on Awake and rolling accompaniment on the title track. Brahem and Holland mesh perfectly, Holland’s soulful outings providing depth and solidity behind Brahem’s more agitated performances, his own solo on The Shades Of Your Eyes a powerful, moving event, his walking, motoring bass on Dancing Under The Meteorites a dynamic undertow.
Throughout this set, there is an emotional intensity and rawness that sometimes catches one’s breath, such is its impact. Brahem notes that “What may evoke sadness for one person may arose nostalgia for another. … I invite listeners to project their own emotions, memories or imaginations, without trying to ‘direct’ them.” It is a more than welcome invitation.
Mark Turner: We Raise Them To Lift Their Heads (Loveland Music LLM023)
It’s a brave and original musician who performs a solo saxophone album, but tenor player Mark Turner is one of the few who can succeed. The six solo pieces here – four composed by guitarist Jakob Bro, whose label Loveland Music releases this set, with one by the leader and a fine Monk’s Misterioso – were recorded in Copenhagen back in 2019, and all display rawness and vulnerability. The opening Slow moves in a leisurely manner up and down the register, Turner’s haunting, elastic tone reassuringly comforting in its delivery, while Red Hook is more angular and impassioned. Misterioso lives up to its enigmatic title as Turner thoroughly investigates its chromatic steps, Bella Vista a series of long-held notes and gently linking phrases. Throughout, the precision of his playing impresses, as every note and intonation is made to count. For such an important player, Turner is often overlooked, but this album should win him many more plaudits.
AuB: Folk Devils (Whirlwind Recordings WR4831 LP)
From a solo saxophone set to a classic twin-tenor line-up, Alex Hitchcock and Tom Barford fronting an international quartet as they talk and dance with Danish bassist Jasper Hølby and French drummer Marc Michel. New York multi-instrumentalist Morgan Guerin and London-based Italian keyboard player Maria Chiara Argiró each add their own distinctive electronic textures with subtle layers of synths to four of the seven tracks. The two saxophonists not so much revive the tenor-titan format as turn it inside out and upside down, telling new stories in a constantly shifting conversation with each other and with the no-frontiers rhythm players. The compositions together perfectly balance complexity with melody, drama with intimacy, angular funk with sombre, spacey beauty. Contemporary jazz at its best.
Butcher Brown: Letters From The Atlantic (Concord Jazz)
Virginia-based collective Butcher Brown has made a name for itself through its creative melding of jazz, R&B, funk, soul and hop-hop. Its latest album is heralded by its featured single: a version of the Brazilian tune Dinorah Dinorah made famous by Georges Benson on his Give Me The Night album, here played with layers of piano, saxophone and guitar over some subtle house beats that updates the tune perfectly. Throughout, the music is seamless, and faultless, oozing style but occasionally lacking personality. The urgent rhythms of Infant Eyes do try to jump-start proceedings, as do various vocal interventions, while the maritime references on Seagulls remind us that this is a letter from the Atlantic. But I am missing the point, for this is a continuous sonic journey, on which one floats along, and enjoys, and is all the better for it.
