Florian Favre, Idantitâ Revisited, Traumton ***

There's quite a chasm between swinging, bebop inspired jazz and a completely different music as here - the loose, take your time spacey sounds grounded in a specific regional music. Swiss pianist Florian Favre and his colleagues provide sensitive, chamber music on this live recording taking Favre's earlier solo album Idantitâ released two years ago and making it a group sound by drawing once again on songs from Favre's home region of Fribourg in western Switzerland. It helps for extra personal resonance if you know the original songs. But if you don't it's not too much of a hurdle as Favre provides his own spin on the source work. Recorded at the Théâtre de L'Échandole in Yverdon-les-Bains singer Claire Huguenin plays a prominent, atmospheric, role - and the instrumentation is quite unusual with oud, violin, cello, euphonium and guitar all in the mix, the oud adding an antique Levantine charm on 'Le lutin du chalet des Rêbes' for instance. Some will prefer the original solo release - there's a link to it here but nevertheless this new release out in March gives plenty of new thought-provoking insights to a body of music most of us will be unfamiliar with but will want to know more about given the ingenious explorations delved into here.

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MAC1210 Kenny Garrett by Evelyn Freja 72dpi RGB PR01

A big influence on Immanuel Wilkins - one of the hottest new generation players around on the US scene today and of course a jazz history maker with Miles Davis and fantastic live - Kenny Garrett's Who Killed AI? out in April will surely be one of the most talked about - and listened to - releases.

We have a few more details about what's in store.

The album to be released on the US Mack Avenue label was recorded mostly in Garrett’s New Jersey living room, Garrett collaborating with Svoy - aka Misha Tarasov, who goes way back with Garrett as Svoy appeared as a singer on a track on 2012’s Seeds From the Underground, and wrote a string arrangement for 'Brother Brown,' on 2013 Garrett album Pushing the World Away. Here he is credited as contributing ''programming, vocals and piano''. There are no other artist personnel involved on the album, the vast majority of the tracks are Garrett compositions. He says in pre-release publicity: “The first two songs are really reminiscent of Miles. The way I’m stretching the melody — that’s how I played with Miles.”

Garrett, now 63, was with Miles from 1987-91 and on the new album track 'Ascendence,' Garrett even does an impression of Miles’ gravelly speaking voice and wordplays on a classic Bitches Brew track by entitling one of the new album's tracks 'Miles Running Down AI'. The altoist's last album was 2021's Sounds From the Ancestors which was his first album in 5 years. On the upcoming release Garrett is mostly on alto sax but plays soprano sax on the electronic laden 'Divergence Tu-dah,' and also covers Rodgers & Hart’s 'My Funny Valentine' using a drum and bass beat. We'll update this story by sharing any available tracks released by the label ahead of the release when made available. Kenny Garrett, photo: Evelyn Freja

Updated on 1 March 2024 with the super quick viscerally flying-into-overdrive drum 'n' bass grounded track 'Ascendence' added, the album's opening track

Daily jazz blog, Marlbank

Florian Favre, Idantitâ Revisited, Traumton ***

What to expect on Kenny Garrett's upcoming album