Vignettes •••
Marilyn Crispell, ECM
On the piano Marilyn Crispell is intimately graceful and seductive with those gorgeous piano strokes of hers. The strokes are not only just soft and teasingly perfect, but there is a feeling of inevitability — something is brewing, a plot, a hidden surprise, an impending storm of emotions as the music builds on its own architecture. Ms. Crispell is an engaging storyteller and, as the title suggests, the pieces fit seamlessly into a beautiful tapestry. The core of the album celebrates a life of fine living and her performance is an achievement that is heightened the intoxicating and addictive culture of the jazz mystique. When music evokes memories and arouses the senses, we are thrilled and fascinated as we watch the music unfold. Ms. Crispell, with her blissful harmony, moving rhythms and tonal purity fills the senses on pieces like “Cuida Tu Espiritu,” “Gathering Light,” and “Ballade.” Still, it’s her seven visionary “Vignettes,” conceived from her own interpretative creation that seems to spawn a field of life-forms that we suddenly find ourselves looking out on. It’s touching, poignant, and elegically moving. Why does it take music like this to fill our lives with a yearning for peace and beauty? Or is it for the freedom to find something more elusive and mysterious? The truth is that when music is freed of its constraints and source of origin, there is sense of harmony that captures the imagination. This is the world of creative and connective music and the world and the future has never look brighter.

PS: Marilyn Crispell will be appearing at An Die Musik in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 16th.

Best of the West + Many Places ••••
Anne Mette Iversen, Bjurecords
Jazz follows its own musical course as in all music, be it classical, blues, rock, or pop, and the result is usually pretty much the same. You either like the music or you don’t. Anne Mette Iversen’s latest, captured on two CDs, Best of the West, flows and feels like standard jazz: lots of improvisations on the sax and bass line that eschews harmony while displaying a kind of organic unity with piano and drums that are allegorical and erudite. This is jazz in one of its purest displays,  and the liberating feeling is as timely and essential as anything else in our lives. Jazz will always be for the moment and that’s final. But jazz as we know it today is every bit a family affair. Jazz performers tend to believe in its tradition and its influential legacy. Hence, when you listen to “North” (Allegro) and “South” (Adagio), the quartet richly showcases the influences of the John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk where harmonies balance their tonal centers with rhythms structured with regular meters. Jazz lovers will not be disappointed. 

Esperanza •••
Esperanza Spalding, Heads Up
Vocalist and bassist Esperanza Spalding’s debut album uses jazz standards, pop styles, soul moods, and Afro-Latin rhythms and harmonies to create unmistakably distinctive stylish sound of her own. With a fresh, youthful voice, the music radiates a vibrant Latin/jazz format with an occasional burst of sensual magnetism. It’s a lovely, charming, carefree music that captures the imagination of something new. But first things first. It’s a romantic album for falling in love with that special person. Oh, what the heck, let’s be real. It’s that Latin sound (Spanish or Portuguese, does it matter) that always gets me. Nonetheless, this is very young music that hints at a great future on songs like “I Adore You,” “Cuerpo Y Alma (Body & Soul),” and “Samba Em Preludio.” On “If That’s True,” the music follows a standard jazz format that showcases harmony, rhythms and fixed meters to serve up a very energetic and scintillating jazz composition. Esperanza offers some delightful surprises and as such the album is worth taking a second look at. A child prodigy, she graduated from the Berklee College of Music, where she immediately became the youngest professor in the history of the famed institution. Her immense talent has already been recognized by the likes of Pat Metheny, Joe Lovano, Herbie Hancock, and Patti Austin – all of whom she has performed or recorded with.

Infinita •••
Lawson Rollins, Infinita Records
Spanish guitarist Lawson Rollins’s alluring solo debut album, Infinita, features a smorgasbord of styles: Latin, Indian, Persian, Arabic, South American, European and American from an accomplished group of musicians from around the world. Leading this stellar group is Mr. Rollins’ multilingual guitar, virtuously crooning with precision, poetry and passion over lavishly produced tracks that vary in mood from festive celebrations, mystery and intrigue, to poignant reflections. With Shahin Shahida and Dominic Camardella contributing an array of instrumentation, percussion legend Airto Moreira lends vocals as does Afghan vocalist Humayun Khan. Adding Middle Eastern instrumentation are Azerbaijani kamanche master Imamyar Hassanov and Pejman Hadidimaster on tombak. Completing the core ensemble are Grammy-winning violinist Charlie Bisharat, bassist Randy Tico, trumpeter Jeff Elliot trumpeter and drummer-percussionist Dave Bryant in addition to a string orchestra in Prague. “I had a vision of what I wanted from the beginning, but over time, and through the contributions from my guest artists, the project took on a life of its own,” explained Mr. Rollins. “There is a profound cross-cultural connection in the ancestry of the modern Spanish guitar to earlier instruments like the Arabic oud, the Persian tar and even the Indian sitar. Bringing these styles together is like returning to the roots of the guitar.”  

A drummer from the age of eight, the San Francisco-based Mr. Rollins fell in love with classical Spanish guitar as a teenager and studied prodigiously. He developed an expressive guitar voice along with an inventive classical fingerstyle technique that he utilizes exclusively.  In his early twenties, Mr. Rollins was drawn to rhythmically dynamic Spanish folk music and the freedom he found in Latin jazz and South American music. A decade ago, he partnered with Daniel Young to form the Latin guitar fusion duo Young & Rollins, successfully releasing four critically-acclaimed albums that blend their original and experimental amalgam of improvisational guitar interplay with the music of salsa, samba, Latin jazz, Bossa Nova, blues, classical and flamenco.

Standouts include “Café Jobim” along with the title track, “Infinita” that is graced with gorgeous Portuguese vocals from Brazilian chanteuse Flora Purim. Other highlights include “Echoes of Madrid” “New World Raga” and “Streets of San Miguel.”

All CDs reviewed in this article are heard through Bowers & Wilkens 802D Speakers and ASW 4000 subwoofer, and Rotel Preamp 1070, amplifier 1092 and CD player1072. CDs are available for purchase through amazon.com For more information about this column, please email your questions to fagon@hillrag.com