Gretchen Parlato, Lionel Loueke, Lean In, Edition ****

Highly influential and innovative US singer Gretchen Parlato is here with long time collaborator the Herbie Hancock guitarist and singer US based Benin jazz great Lionel Loueke. Very much a close knit affair, Gretchen's husband drummer Mark …

Published: 12 Mar 2023. Updated: 18 days.

Highly influential and innovative US singer Gretchen Parlato is here with long time collaborator the Herbie Hancock guitarist and singer US based Benin jazz great Lionel Loueke.

Very much a close knit affair, Gretchen's husband drummer Mark Guiliana of Mehliana fame, Guiliana and Loueke family members and close friend bassist Burniss Travis (known for his work with Common and James Francies) figure among the personnel on Lean In which was recorded in Los Angeles over three days of March last year. It is full of Brazilian music, West African sounds and more and represents the state of the art in terms of jazz vocals and also joins the dots passing the baton from singer to instrumentalism and back again in a parity of esteem and represents another peak in both Parlato and Loueke's remarkable careers.

Songs here include Loueke tune 'Akwê' and a very fine version of Lynn Malsby's 1980s song 'I Miss You'. Parlato's sound is metrically astounding and highly expert in harnessing the power of difficult syncopated runs that still retain their communicative rather than impressive-for-the-sake-of-it appeal to gain traction and a sense of rewarding release.

Among the tracks are the Carlos Pingarilho, Marcos Vasconcellos song 'Astronauta' also known as 'Samba da Pergunta' that goes back to the 1960s covered on the 1970 album João Gilberto en México.

Also here are the Loueke piece 'Painful Joy' and a Loueke arrangement of the Dave Grohl song 'Walking After You' heard on the Foo Fighters' The Colour and the Shape (1997) a song that the Foo Fighters later re-recorded for the soundtrack of The X-Files. 'Lean In' feat. Mark Guiliana and 'I Miss You' are streaming. Lean In is released on 19 May.

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Lionel Loueke and Gretchen Parlato. Photo: Lauren Desberg

Tags: reviews

Isao Suzuki, Approach, BBE Music ***1/2

Until now Approach has not, according to BBE Music, been reissued in 36 years when it first came out. The bassist Isao Suzuki - who hailed from Tokyo, recorded for such cult labels as Three Blind Mice, was in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the …

Published: 11 Mar 2023. Updated: 18 days.

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Until now Approach has not, according to BBE Music, been reissued in 36 years when it first came out.

The bassist Isao Suzuki - who hailed from Tokyo, recorded for such cult labels as Three Blind Mice, was in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the early-1970s and who died in 2022 - is in his Black Orpheus period (a Three Blind Mice trio album that had Donald Bailey on it).

But here in a bass, drums, keys, guitar setting the Approach line-up includes the pianist Hideo Ichikawa who worked on some Joe Henderson albums that included 1973's blisteringly compelling In Japan. Ichikawa comes over in a pastoral Keith Jarrett 1970s vein on 'Otari'. And yet he is even better when he goes free on 'Tornado.'

Suzuki's gritttily raw edge that characterises his sense of rugged beat has a thrusting, probing validity best experienced through the charisma of his ostinato flourish exhibited on 'East Words' - the longest and most absorbing piece. The drummer here Masahiko Togashi, who worked with free-jazz pioneer Paul Bley and the great Masabumi Kikuchi, is not an intrusive presence at all. But he certainly makes his presence felt in all the right places. Black Orpheus is a better record. But chances are you will be spirited into Suzuki's world if previously impervious or worse oblivious to it anyway.

Isao Suzuki, photo: Wikipedia