Simon Moullier, photo: Shervin Laines
A pronounced vibes flavour to a lot of compelling jazz this year
We have written before and identified which albums justify the claim - eg Nublues by Joel Ross, Rob Waring's marvellous contributions to John Surman's Words Unspoken, Jim Hart on A Drop of Hope in the Ocean of Uncertainty by Cloudmakers Trio, Closing Time by Live Edge trio featuring Steve Nelson, Lewis Wright's role on Wonder is the Beginning by Empirical, History of the Vibraphone by Warren Wolf, Sonic Creed Volume II: Life Signs by Stefon Harris and Sonic Creed, Ralph Wyld's work on James Hudson's Moonray, David Friedman's Gary Burton calibre showing in his strong duo album with singer Michael Schiefel on Hiptoe and coming up Breaking Stretch by the Patricia Brennan Septet - that 2024 has been the year of the vibes.
Also coming soon Elements of Light joins that illustrious list. This Simon Moullier album may even be the best of the whole bunch.
Of course while it's handy to shorthand such and such as a vibes, harp, flute, oboe - theremin, ffs! - album and so on, that factor isn't what defines its success. But it may describe it a bit.
Hardly a case of one size fits all
And speaking of descriptions, this late-September release by vibist composer Simon Moullier out on Candid records has 'Elements of Light' and '808' streaming ahead of release. They provide a good indication of the album's strength and also its compositional ambition successfully realised. A quartet affair (Moullier with pianist Lex Korten, bassist Rick Rosato and drummer Jongkuk "JK" Kim) the guests are pianist Gerald Clayton and trumpeter Marquis Hill.
Where there's a will there's a Wayne
The Paris born Moullier, 30, studied at what was then the Monk now the Herbie Hancock Institute in the States where he was mentored by Clayton. Album tracks include a version of Wayne Shorter 1964 Blue Note classic Night Dreamer track 'Oriental Folk Song' which for us is the pick of the whole album. Look for this latest hugely engrossing gem on 20 September.
Comments