Germana Stella La Sorsa & Tom Ollendorff: After Hours (33 Jazz Records)
Weighing in at around 25 minutes, this record is technically an EP, however, the quality of the music presented on these six tracks is superb. Vocalist Germana Stella La Sorsa hails from Italy and worked on the jazz scene there before moving to the UK in 2017. She released her debut album Vapour in 2021 on 33 Jazz Records with a quartet including guitarist Nick Costley-White. British guitarist Tom Ollendorff’s debut trio album A Song For You was released on Fresh Sound New Talent Records, also in 2021. After Hours is the first duo album by La Sorsa and Ollendorf, who both coincidentally released sophomore albums in between this one and their respective debuts.
It’s mostly populated by non-originals, and the opener is Lennon and McCartney’s Because, from Abbey Road. It sticks closely to the script for the first two minutes before departing into a mesmeric three-minute reverie. One of two originals is Procida, which provides a great vehicle to highlight Ollendorff’s guitar chops. The other original is the delicately wistful In Time and (S)Pace. With lyrics by La Sorsa, the music was composed by bassist Joe Boyle, with whom she works on the Jazz In Cinema Project.
Carinhoso, composed by Brazilians Pixinguinha and João de Barro, is deftly executed by La Sorsa in its original Portuguese. The title track was famously recorded by Sarah Vaughan with Paul Weston and his Orchestra (Columbia, 1951) and here La Sorsa affords it a faithful reading with Ollendorff providing subtle yet fulsome backing. The closer is a sprightly version of Sammy Fain’s Alice In Wonderland from the eponymous 1951 Disney movie, replete with La Sorsa’s scat embellishments.
Jazzanova: In Between Revisited: Jazzanova Live (Sonar Kollektiv SK500)
This Jazzanova live album comes as a double vinyl release. But it’s a far cry from its originator namesake In Between (Compost Records, 2002) which was the Jazzanova recording debut for a collective comprising Berlin-based producers Stefan Leisering and Axel Reinemer and DJs Alex Barck, Claas Brieler and Jürgen von Knoblauch. The album was a studio-only concept and was never intended to be performed live. The records were so successful that by 2006 they had begun a collaboration with Blue Note Records, under the title Blue Note Trip, to reimagine some of that label’s classic tracks.
The progenitors for Jazzanova’s Nu Jazz oeuvre are many and various and encompass such genres as chill-out, acid-jazz, dancefloor-jazz and future-jazz. Certainly, hip-hop and rap should also be included as active participants in the nu-jazz phenomenon. Jazzanova was to some extent built on foundations created by Guru’s Jazzamatazz, Madlib and many others.
By the second decade of this century Jazzanova had started to morph in a different way. With their second and third studio albums, Funkhaus Studio Sessions (Sonar Kollektiv, 2012) and The Pool (Sonar Kollektiv, 2018) they began bringing live musicians into the mix. In Between Revisited: Jazzanova Live is an impressive set populated by a nucleus of musicians including Sebastian Borkowski (saxes and flute), Stefan Ulrich (trombone, EFX), Christoph Adams (keyboards, vocals), Florian Menzel (trumpet), Christoph Bernewitz (guitar), Paul Kleber (bass) and Jan Burkamp (drums).
Captured in front of a live audience (applause is included) at Lichtenstein’s Little Big Beat Studios in September 2024, the tracks are reduced in number from the original album’s 17 to nine. The result is impressive and ranges from the beguiling vocal of Clara Hill on No Use to Heen Maartens’ urgent rap on The One-Tet. The instrumental Another New Day is a fine example of how excellent ensemble jazz can transcend the limitations and prejudices of labelling. The deceptively sophisticated arrangements are populated throughout by each song’s irrepressible groove. For a taste of this band live, just Google Jazzanova on YouTube.
Stefano Rocco Quartet: Wildlife (self-released)
Guitarist Stefano Rocco presents his diverse range of zoologically inspired tunes from the graceful title track via the elegiac Coral Reef to the subtle funkiness of Cat Walk. Recorded in Sydney on 14 and 15 December 2024, it’s the follow-up to his debut self-released album in 2020, A New Night, A New Day, which featured the same quartet line-up as Wildlife with Nick Southcott (piano), Muhamed Mehmedbasic (double bass) and Ed Rodrigues (drums). As with its concept album predecessor, which narrated a story in seven episodes over one day, here it offers a musical interpretation of the characters of seven different animals. The quartet is confidently poised and integrated, Southcott’s piano an excellent counterpoint to Rocco’s limpid guitar – which all makes for a very pleasing set.
Hedvig Mollestad Trio: Bees In The Bonnet (Rune Grammofon RCD2237 / RLP3237)
Released in multi-formats (CD, LP and download) this might just be Hedvig Mollestad Trio’s best album to date. This follow-up to the trio’s previous release Ding Dong. You’re Dead (Rune Grammofon, 2021) appears after guitarist extraordinaire Mollestad’s two other highly acclaimed excursions, Maternity Beat (Rune Grammofon, 2022) with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and Weejuns (Rune Grammofon, 2023). Mollestad is superbly assisted by her regular trio colleagues Ellen Brekken on bass and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad on drums, and the album’s entire 35 minutes is totally gripping – from the unequivocally heavy-metal sounds of See See Bop to Golden Griffin, with its opening and recurring theme a cross between an Irish jig on speed and Motörhead on acid. Mollestad’s stratospheric guitar lines insistently punctuate the frenetic mêlée. Conversely, the menacing Itta exudes dark, Zeppelin-like power chords.
The stealthily faltering first half of Bob’s Your Giddy Aunt gradually builds to a crescendo with a bass-driven riff underpinned by Loe Bjørnstad’s seething percussive incursions. The outlier in the set is the delicately lyrical Lamament, where Mollestad is heard at her most Frisell-like, replete with lithe, echoey guitar lines. The closer, Apocalypse Slow features Brekken’s furious ostinato bass guitar whilst Mollestad’s Sturm und Drang soaring guitar channels Hendrix at his most iconoclastic. Cliché it might be, but it’s probably true to state that Mollestad is the jewel in Rune Grammofon’s crown.
