NEW YORK (Top40 Charts/ ACT Music) - ACT
Music is set to release two creative and ambitious collaborative albums by Swedish trombone phenom Nils Landgren and pianist
Joe Sample and Vietnamese-French guitarist Nguy n L.
Known equally well as a source of the best talent European creative music has to offer as for its collaborations between European and American artists, ACT
Music now re-embarks on two-album-a-month release schedule.
On June 12, the Munich-based label will reissue Landgren and Sample's 2002 recording Creole Love Call and last year's Homescape by L under a new U.S. distribution arrangement.
Nils Landgren &
Joe Sample Creole Love Call
Trombonist Nils Landgren is always on the look out for new challenges. It is this creative spirit that has made him one of the most multi-faceted and successful artists on the European scene. Since 1994 he has released 12 solo albums for ACT Music - seven of which have received the golden German Jazz Award, with two even going platinum. He has also collaborated with Esbjorn Svensson and produced Swedish singers Rigmor Gustafsson and Viktoria Tolstoy.
So how did this modern day master of funk, jazz and Swedish folk come to New Orleans music? His father, Karl-Erik Landgren would habitually tell his young son: "Listen to this music, it's the real stuff." This enthusiasm for trad jazz passed from father to Landgren the younger would fulfill his father's lifelong dream to set foot in the Crescent City. In the Spring of 2005, in order to realize a project devoted to the music of the American South, Landgren ventured to New Orleans to record with Joe Sample: Creole Love Call.
Known above all as a founding member, pianist and composer for The Crusaders, Joe Sample has been making musical hits for decades. Many of these classics are found on Creole Love Call. Since the late '70s, Sample has also performed with Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner, B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Joe Cocker on numerous albums and tours.
Friends for over 20 years, Landgren and Sample reconnected in 2003 when Sample asked the trombonist to join him and the reunited Crusaders on a tour of Japan. As a result of the tour, Landgren and Sample sealed the deal to record together. The band they would eventually put together for this album consists mainly of musicians from New Orleans. Ray Parker, Jr. plays guitar and duets with Landgren on the Otis Redding hit "(Sittin' on The) Dock Of The Bay." The rhythm section consists of bassist Chris Severin, drummer Raymond Weber (drums), and percussionist Lenny Castro. Special guest Charmaine Neville (of the world-famous Neville clan) duets with Landgren on Allen Toussaint's classic "With You In Mind," (with lyrics by Aaron, her uncle). Additional guests include Dirty Dozen Brass Band members sousaphonist Kirk Joseph and trombonist Sammie "Big Sam" Williams.
The recordings for Creole Love Call took place in May 2005 at Piety Street Studio in downtown New Orleans, where musicians such as The Neville Brothers, Ryan Adams, Dr. John, Lenny Kravitz and Alanis Morissette have previously recorded.
Nguy n L Homescape: Duos with Paolo Fresu and Dhafer Youssef
Even in the adventurous territory of jazz, guitarist Nguy n L stands out as a unique explorer of sounds. This re-release will surprise even those who believe themselves to be, by now, familiar with the diversity of his musical output. Most of the tracks on Homescape were recorded in L 's living room using his computer. However, this domestic method of producing music need not conjure up the cosy realm of familial comfort. In fact, L leads the listener into a space that is full to the brim with warped sounds and acoustical metamorphoses. The windows of this space are open to influences from very different parts of the world. As L puts it, "Sardinian breeze, the hypnotic influence of the orient, and the mystery of Asia" broadens into an ever more fascinating sonic magnificence. And all of L 's music is homegrown and finely honed.
L 's alternating partners for this album are the Sardinian trumpeter Paolu Fresu and the Tunisian oud player and vocalist Dhafer Youssef. The guitarist's connection with Fresu goes back more than 10 years. L had admired the Italian trumpeter the first time he heard him. L met Dhafer Youssef six years ago during an evening of world music, jazz and rock at Vienna's Porgy and Bess jazz club, and he "knew instantly that this was someone with a special intensity." Today Youssef lives in the Barb?s neighborhood, a veritable melting pot in the north of Paris. L has processed these recordings electronically to "concentrate them". These duos have undergone a metamorphosis like musical dialogues engineered in an electronic laboratory.
The guitarist says he drew his inspiration from the local Parisian music scene around him. In Paris, L says, "Electronic sounds are more in vogue than any other kind of music. No stage looks complete without a DJ and laptop. All the clubs feature the combination of dance and experimental sound. I usually don't trust fashion", he says, "but this surge of electronic music has not left me unaffected." In 2004, L was confronted by electronic music while writing a film score for which he was asked to use elements of noise and electro-acoustic experimentation; the "abstract side of musical material." This inspired the guitarist to dig deeper into the sonic fabric of what was in his head. The experience also made him think about producing an album from his home. "I simply wanted to develop everything that was possible at home. I wanted the duos to retain their intimacy, while giving them an added orchestral dimension by allowing the spirit of the machine to influence them. This is a radical process: the most intimate form of jazz playing, the duo, is stripped of its immediacy." Yet it still sounds intimate and warm. And this is the essential paradox that Nguy n L so ingeniously brings to life here.
L 's approach to each duo differed depending on his partner. With Paolo Fresu, L essentially had a completely open conception: Improvisation with no composed material. Although there are exceptions: Billy Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge" developed into an intimate gem featuring muted trumpet and gentle electric guitar. Nguy n and Dhafer Youssef collaborated on the music for their duo, and adapted compositions of Youssef's, lending them a new structure through the process of improvisation. One track might be characterized by Youssef's expressive wail and an electric guitar contributing a rock-and-roll energy, while another celebrates the ancient folk sound of oud and guitar in a sensually intertwining improvisation. In the duos with Fresu, soft muted sounds of the wind instrument meet strange, electronically filtered gongs and Asian-inspired melodies, or numerous trumpet voices split an electronic noise-scape. "Neon" has a rhythm track, which was overdubbed beneath the string instruments and trumpet, as if it had been present all along as an intuited rhythm. Nguy n L's "chamber" music has a compelling inner logic - and convincing internal vigour.
