Markelian Kapedani Trio - Balkan Bop (Red Records, 2011)

Markelian Kapedani Trio
Balkan Bop
Red Records
2011

Jazz is uniquely an American gift shared with the world...and the would ran with it.  It could be argued that the further East in Europe jazz migrates, the richer and more satisfying the jazz created.  Albanian pianist Markelian Kapedani proves a volcanic composer and performer, throwing off intricate melodies and arrangements effortlessly.  He runs the tightest trio since Fred Hersch in the mid-1990s.  Conservative and mainstream Kapedani's retains much of the structure of jazz compositions and adaptations made in the 1980s.  Drummer Asaf Sirkis proves powerful and decisive in the propelling the trio, paving the way for Kapedani's fertile ideas.

Pablo Bobrowicky - Southern Blue (Red Records, 2011)

Pablo Bobrowicky
Southern Blue
Red Records
2011
* * * * *
Argentinian guitarist Pablo Bobrowicky turns to a trio format for Southern Blue, a recording of stripped-down grace and earthy resonance.  This is organic music presented on a bed of soft silence, captured close and without augmentation.  Bobrowicky plays close to the bone, displaying is fecund spirit on the opening original "Sos Vos ?"  His Ellington is elegant ("Cottontail," "I'm Beginning to See the Light" and "C Jam Blues") and his Bird, fearless ("Barbados").  Bassist Ben Street and drummer Pepi Taveira follow the leader's groove, generating a working unit svelte and exact.  The guitarist plays like Basie; he is not wordy or verbose.  Bobrowicky plays only the notes that need be played...all the right ones.

Gary Smulyan - Smul's Paradise (Capri Records, 2012)

Smul's Paradise
Gary Smulyan
Capri Records
2012
* * * * 1/2


Following James Carter's baritone-led organ band, Gay Smulyan joins forces with the formidable band of organist Mike LeDonne, guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Kenny Washington.  In doing so, Smulyan  revisits the heady heyday of Blue Note records in the 1950s and '60s, when jazz musicians would come together with little or no prior warning and sit down and play.  Introducing the disc with a jaunty "Sunny," Smulyan sets a brisk neo-hard bop pace that never lets up.  The baritone saxophone provides a muscular melodic motor to a standard organ trio.

Michael Campagna - Moments (Challenge Records, 2011)

Moments
Michael Campagna
Challenge Records
2011
* * * *
Tenor Saxophonist Michael Campagna plays a well-behaved brand of contemporary jazz that never descends into the "smooth" realm (not that there is anything wrong with the smooth realm).  His well-rounded tone feeds into the plushness of Michael Rodrigeuz's plush flugalhorn (almost sounds like Chet Baker had Baker ever given a damn).  This is what one would hope all contemporary jazz would sound like: well conceived, composed and played with only an acoustic finish.  All originals, Moments represents a jazz suite of completely listenable music that neither challenges nor bores.  That is a mark of fine composition and Campagna achieves this in spades.

The Devil Inside (Paramount, 2011)

The Devil Inside
Directed by William Brent Bell
Paramount Pictures
2011

Slasher films of the '70s and '80s held sexual congress with the ADD-riddled mentality of the '90s, that gave rise to The Blair Witch Project (Artisan, 1999), giving rise to the bastard child whose face launched a thousand faux-documentary ships that went on to include Paranormal Activity (Paramount, 2007) and its sibs, The Last Exorcism (Lionsgate, 2010), and now, The Devil Inside.  The further the sub-sub-sub-genre evolves, the thinner the research becomes and the more fractal the story lines disintegrate.  Point of Catechism: infants that die before Baptism do not go to Hell (as the OSB, MD in the film states in a seizure of spiritual Ecstasy), rather once to Limbo and now that the Holy Mother Church has declared Limbo to have been a bad joke all along:

Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered above give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision. We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge. There is much that simply has not been revealed to us.  We live by faith and hope in the God of mercy and love who has been revealed to us in Christ, and the Spirit moves us to pray in constant thankfulness and joy .

and, now, to somewhere altogether different.  Get your facts straight, Bell.  You should have paid more attention in class.  I recommend William Friedkin's The Exorcist (Warner Bros., 1973), the film that started it all.

11/22/63 by Stephen King (Scribner, 2011)

11/22/63

Stephen King

Scribner

2011

Notorious for poorly ending well-started stories, Stephen King manages for the first time since Insomnia (Viking, 1994) to keep a tale from "disintegrating into ravenous particles" during the plot climax.  The Kennedy assassination serves as a vehicle for time travel and the consequences of good intentions.  King addresses both Darwinian string theory and the concept of multiple dimensions.  As a subtext, free will is interrogated and largely supported in the face of reality as a flood of fate, easily distracted and fickle.  An excellent book.

Nicolas Masson - Departures (Fresh Sound, 2010)

Nicolas Masson
Departures
Fresh Sound
2010
* * * *
This is the edge of wispy and ethereal free jazz, kind of Jimmy Guiffre meets John Abercrombie.  The Swiss Masson, tenor saxophone and clarinet specialist is deft with the pen and score, summoning Eastern and Western influencesfrom the Balkan-sounding "Amber" to the airy and clever title piece.  Guitarist Ben Monder nails down this pianoless rhythm section, blowing the playing space wide open.  The edges are too rough for ECM, where this music would otherwise sound at home.  But Masson is too restless and ambitious to bend to that sound.  There is much to admire here.