WEEK IN RELEASES

Old and new favorites dominate this week’s new release round-up. Two smoking live sets from venerable figures in contemporary jazz offer the latest disproof of the music’s demise. A collection of soundtrack music from the 1970s challenges the myth of “blaxploitation,” and a pair of releases from young musicians in Brazil and Texas promises the world a bright and funky future.

Vandermark 5

Annular Gift (Not Two)

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Those who have seen Vandermark 5 perform live know that there’s much more to the band than its studio recordings. For one thing, when left to their own devices, drummer Tim Daisy and bassist Kent Kessler can swing, which offers their bandmates a nice, fat pocket in which to stuff their more abstract ideas. For another, reedsmen Ken Vandermark and Dave Rempis pick at each other more freely in front of a crowd, swapping harmonies with a swagger that they lose in the studio. The X factor, then, is cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, and, on Annular Gift, he’s right where he needs to be: straddling the line between Grant Green and Billy Bang, with an effects pedal ready to throw things into Funkadelic territory. Recorded in March 2009, live in Krakow, Poland, Annular Gift is the band’s most nuanced and compulsively listenable album to date and its best since 2005’s The Color of Memory.

Rob Brown Trio

Live at Firehouse 12 (Not Two)

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Tucked away among the gritty streets of New Haven, Connecticut, Firehouse 12 plays host to a wide variety of wayward free improvisers. And, if the Rob Brown trio’s new Live at Firehouse 12 is any indication, the place must have some happy neighbors. Of particular note is the quality of the recording—it’s so clear, in parts, that you can hear Brown’s fingers clacking across his saxophone, quite a feat for a live album. Brown’s angular compositions get a fair hearing from cellist Daniel Levin , who has a little Mingus in his sense of melody and a vibrato that will make you say “damn.” Drummer Satoshi Takeishi may split his time between out jazz and Latin funk—he’s played with Ray Barretto—but you wouldn’t guess that from the range of tones he coaxes from his cache of unusual percussion instruments. On the whole, a quiet and abstract recording that doesn’t lack a soul.

Various Artists

Can You Dig It? The Music and Politics of Black Action Films (Soul Jazz)

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The dismissive term “blaxploitation” always conjures white frat boys in Afro wigs calling each other pimps. Soul Jazz, which subtitled its newest reissue package “The Music and Politics of Black Action Films” seems to get it. “Blaxploitation” films were, by and large, made by black people for black people, without the implied exploitation. They gave crucial soundtrack work to black musicians, who, in the hangover of the Black Power movement, shared with filmmakers the desire to articulate a new black politics. Fantastic music aside—gathering Marvin Gaye, Roy Ayers, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, and Willie Hutch onto a pair of CDs is always going to get you places—the set captures the essence and nuance of 1970s black movies and their political world. It’s one where the pusherman isn’t always the worst guy on the screen.

Brownout

Aguilas and Cobras (Six Degrees)

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Austin’s Grupo Fantasma is one of our favorite going concerns, so when we heard that the band had a Latin funk side project, we had to check it out. Brownout rocks a west coast vibe, more Carlos Santana than Willie Colón. The band isn’t afraid to mix a few rock licks into its bridges, and a searing guitar solo or two hasn’t killed anybody yet. But, as with Grupo Fantasma, it’s the lockstep percussion duo of Matthew “Sweet Lou” Holmes and Johnny Lopez that provides the dramatic thrust, which is, as always, toward the dance floor.

Seu Jorge

America Brasil Ao Vivo (EMI Brazil)

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Live, Brazilian superstars often add a little “melo” to their drama, like actors do on a particularly massive stage. It’s a tendency that Seu Jorge avoids, giving a live reading of material from his recent America Brasil record that nonetheless gets a boost of majesty from the live setting. Americans may never get over the fact that Jorge can whip out a killer Bowie cover, but it’s his recent embrace of samba soul that’s keeping Brazilian fans interested. Slickly funky, Jorge’s buttery voice is what sells the music. A few more tours like this one, and people might start talking about that Wes Anderson movie that featured Seu Jorge instead of the other way around.

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