Vancouver-based artist Mary Ancheta, releases her debut EP, Level Up, out now. The five-track project explores complex feelings of self-reflection, determination, joyful noise, and freedom.

Early press support comes from the likes of Exclaim!, CBC Music, Postmedia, and Northern Transmissions. Previous singles “Gotta Get It” and “Level Up” have had substantial coverage through The Georgia Straight and CBC Vancouver.

This album was written during COVID. Over the years afteri supporting so many Canadian Artists such as Kimmortal, Amanda Sum, Jill Barber, Khari McLleland, and Ashleigh Ball and many more as a side person I feel like I have come into my own with my writing. I felt like I finally had something to say and had found my own voice as a writer and as a musician. Mary Ancheta Quartet were looking to capture more of a rawness in the sound and emotion while not looking for a polished sound.

Alongside the project, the Mary Ancheta Quartet are scheduled to start a run of live shows across June and July including an EP release show with BADBADNOTGOOD at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on June 29 in Vancouver. See the full list of dates below:

Upcoming Tour Dates:

June 24 - Winnipeg, MB (Winnipeg Jazz Festival)

June 25 - Toronto, ON (Toronto Jazz Festival)

June 26 - Ottawa, ON (Ottawa Jazz Festival)

June 29 - Vancouver, BC (Vancouver Jazz Festival) *EP Release / Opening for BADBADNOTGOOD

June 30 - Victoria, BC (Victoria Jazz Festival)

July 2 - Edmonton, AB (Edmonton Jazz Festival)

July 4 - Montreal, QC (Montreal Jazz Festival)

July 7 - Saskatoon, SK (Saskatoon Jazz Festival)

July 14 - Halifax, NS (Halifax Jazz Festival)

Vinyl for 7-inch are available here and here.

About Mary Ancheta:

Mary Ancheta is a Canadian Filipina Musician born in Hamilton, Ontario and is now a staple on the West Coast scene. Ancheta cut her teeth playing keyboards with such acts as Kimmortal, Amanda Sum, Ashleigh Ball and more. As a newly minted bandleader Mary is driven by process over perfection. Inspired by the likes of Squarepusher, The Meters, John Scofield, and Prince, Ancheta knows what’s up when it comes to arresting melodies and irresistible grooves. Also drawing from scoring for Film & TV you can hear some of this influence in the music. You can find some of her compositions on Netflix, HBO, National Geographic and most recently the Award Winning Feature Film Golden Delicious.

This music & tour has been made possible through the Support of the Canada Council.

For more information, please contact:

info@maryancheta.com

Debuting with her single 'Five Little Birds', Bridge The Gap are proud to present Jesa. Based in Paris, this exciting new artist is ready to break into the bubbling European future soul and nu-jazz conversation.

A singer, songwriter, producer & guitarist, Jesa builds her distinctive sound from a love for Afro-American music and contemporary soul. Training as a jazz musician in Paris led to her developing a deep understanding and affinity with rich harmonic language and rhythmic flavours, a toolbox used to full effect in her songwriting. Her music infuses soulful top lines with elements of jazz fusion and gospel, creating diverse sonic palettes with heavy, percussive grooves, expansive synths and a multi-lingual poetic flare.

Her debut, independent EP, 'FACES', has been a labor of love for the 24-year old. The project chronicles the ups and downs of young woman navigating relationships, love and personal growth. The songs on the project became a vehicle for Jesa to articulate feelings of loneliness & despair, process toxic relationships & trauma, and deal with the transition from adolescence into adulthood. In many ways, it's a coming of age record with a statement of intent and arrival, and a love letter to sonic influences like Esperanza Spalding, Prince and Lianne La Havas.

''Five Little Birds' is a perfect introduction to the sound world of the project. Early tension from mysterious chords is washed away by bright melodies and interaction between bopping basslines and tight percussion. The musicality reflects the duality of Jesa's lyrics, as she is stuck between acceptance and repression of her emotions.

I was torn between accepting my feelings of love or repressing them. I really wanted to give myself over, but I felt that I would not receive this love from the other. This song is the declaration of a half-lived, half-fantasized love, a reverie that invites the other to fall in love.

Faces is available here

The album 'From the Darkness to the Light' by the Italian Berlin-based duo EXTEMPORE, founded by singer Tamara Soldan and electronic musician Michele Pedrazzi, has been available on the Da Vinci Label since 26 May on record and all digital platforms.

The EXTEMPORE project is the result of long research work, a combination of archaic, electronic, contemporary music and improvisation. The union of the two musicians' musical backgrounds (jazz, contemporary, improvisation and early music for Soldan, experimental and electronic music for Pedrazzi) creates a virtual dialogue between past and present and between musical genres that are apparently distant but surprisingly compatible.

The universal and introspective character of Gregorian chant is the source of inspiration for EXTEMPORE, presented in an abstract light, detached from its original religious context, while retaining its depth and mystical flavour. Archaic song is re-imagined in a contemporary context through electronic textures. Fragments of melodies, urban and nature sounds are deconstructed and recomposed into a new musical concept.A new soundscape in dialogue between past and present, a continuous flow from darkness to light that invites us to explore the depths of human emotions and experiences.

'Extempore' means moving away from the original religious context of Gregorian chant, maintaining a universal mysticism without ideologies. It then evokes the sense of improvisation, ''out of the moment'' or ''in the moment'', typical of extemporaneous composition without prior planning or preparation.

The music of EXTEMPORE aspires to be not merely an aesthetic experience, but also a philosophical one, and contains an invitation to explore consciousness and the universal themes of human experience. Listeners can expect to be transported to a world of sound that transcends the boundaries of time and space. 

The album encourages one to delve into the depths of feelings and experiences and to go on a personal journey 'from the darkness to the light'.

Tamara Soldan is an eclectic singer and musician. Her projects and collaborations range from Medieval Music to Contemporary and Jazz for voice and medieval Fiddle. In 2022 she was awarded the Musikfonds Deutschland grant for the contemporary project Re-flexions, soon to be released together with the album 'Dante and the Music of his Time' with the ensemble Vortex.

Michele Pedrazzi is a multimedia artist and electronic musician. Under the pseudonym Bob Meanza, he has several solo productions to his credit, including the recent release 'Quandary' (Oxmose Records, 2022).

CREDITS AND LINKS:

Tracklist: In Principio - Aurea Luce - The Journey - Alleluia - From the Darkness to the Light - The Calling - Justus es Homine - The Gift - Sine Nomine

Tamara Soldan: voice

Michele Pedrazzi: electronics

Arranged by Tamara Soldan and Michele Pedrazzi. Produced by Michele Pedrazzi in 2019 at the Garden 505 studio in Berlin. Mixed and mastered by Stefano Amerio at Studio Artesuono, Udine.

Listen to Extempore on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/6ht0v93YkT4CDf0UDO9VOy

Purchase link on the DaVinci website: https://davinci-edition.com/labels/da-vinci-classics/

 Two trailers are available on YouTube to better understand Extempore's musical project: https://youtu.be/RhQzoZMe94I and https://youtu.be/qvygJ_BDWAA

The jazz world often feels the need to divide ensembles and musicians with language including ‘bandleader’ and ‘sideman’, but Italian trio Kósmos proves they have no use for such terms. Their collective approach to music making and anti-hierarchical trio returns with ‘Averno’, set to release on May 19th.

Coming together almost a decade ago in their hometown of Naples, Stefano Falcone (piano), Ilaria Capalbo (double bass) and Giuseppe D’Alessandro (drums) share a common love for the introverted, spacious, European sound that they’ve become known for. Their respective careers as solo artists then separated them across the continent, all becoming in demand performers and recording musicians across Italy, Sweden, Portugal and more.

Their upcoming album follows their 2019 debut ‘Back Home’, a collection of reworkings of legendary pianist Lennie Tristano, released on popular Italian Jazz magazine Jazzit’s own record label. It was through the development of this music that the trio honed their ability to deconstruct musical forms, and build them back into what they describe as a “living organism”.

Named after a lake in Bacoli, Italy, which in ancient times was believed to be the entrance to the underworld and the reign of Hades, ‘Averno’ is a collection of original compositions united by their melancholic, contemplative, ECM-esque tone. Folk-tinged melodies, dark harmony and mesmeric passages of pulse-less texture provide the listener with hypnotic mental imagery of the album’s namesake.

Rooted equal parts in jazz tradition and European classical music, each member of the trio contributed compositions to form this body of work. Thoughtfully arranged and highly melodic, the trio’s fearless approach to improvisation and collective approach to music making takes the spotlight. Their sound doesn’t feel piano-centric as is often the nature of trio records; each instrument feels equally represented, with egoless ensemble musicianship and nuanced interplay providing a refined perspective on the traditional trio format.

Stefano Falcone | Piano Ilaria Capalbo | Double bass Giuseppe D’Alessandro | Drums

1. Roba'iyyat (Giuseppe D’Alessandro) 
2. The Narrow Sea (Stefano Falcone)
3. Largo (Ilaria Capalbo) 
4. The tale of the night and the madman (Giuseppe D’Alessandro) 
5. Distances (Ilaria Capalbo)
6. Hymn (Stefano Falcone) 
7. Så rinner tiden bort (Olle Adolphson) 

Background info / Liner Notes:

Recorded at Artesuono, Cavalicco (UD), Italy on May 21, 2021

Mixed and mastered by Stefano Amerio

Artist website here

Press release provided by JazzFuel

Three years after the release of ARTEMIS’ self-titled debut album, the acclaimed ensemble returns with the May 5 release of In Real Time, a marvelous follow-up that highlights the improvisational strength of its members as well as their respective gifts as composers. The album showcases a new lineup of the collective with founding members—pianist and musical director Renee Rosnes, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Noriko Ueda, and drummer **Allison Miller—**joined by newcomers Nicole Glover on tenor saxophone and Alexa Tarantino on alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, and flute. The 8-song set presents compelling originals along with choice arrangements of pieces by Lyle Mays (“Slink”) and Wayne Shorter (“Penelope”).

The album is introduced today with the brightly swinging single “Lights Away From Home,” a piece composed by Ueda which was inspired when the bassist witnessed a meteor shower on a small, isolated island in upstate New York. “I made a sketch of the piece the next morning while sitting on the same rock where I saw the shooting stars, remembering the excitement of the experience,” Ueda recalls. “My aim was to write something with a positive, upbeat vibe.”

The band’s 2020 debut was met with wide critical acclaim. “Collectively, the sheer force of the group’s ability is staggering,” wrote DownBeat. The Wall Street Journal praised their “ability to move gracefully through various styles and moods and to sound, by turns, authoritative and playful, locked-in or loose-limbed,” adding that “ARTEMIS means to upend expectations, gently and yet with force. Its music comes off like a nuanced argument for a fresh point of view.”

“The new album is an authentic representation of the collective and the individual,” Miller says. “Our growth as a band is clear from the downbeat. There is a trust that has become more solidified since our first recording and the chemistry is palpable. Simply put, we sound like a band!”

Artemis Website

Hard to believe that this stunning album is the debut recording from Laura Lantano. So assured is Laura’s performance, and that of her exceptional companions on this musical journey. In this beautiful and delicate album, pianist Sam Leakand tenor saxophonist **Duncan Eagle**provide the perfect setting to bring the music to life and allow Laura to tell her stories through the power of song.

In a bold move Laura has chosen to record a set of original compositions, each of which tells its own story of love, heartache and putting the past behind and starting afresh. With each song Laura establishes a rapport with the music and lyrics finding a way to bring these elements together in intricate arrangements that have an ability to communicate in a very personal way.

Music has always played an important part in Laura’s life from starting to play piano at the age of four to writing her first song at eight. From there on her musical grounding came from playing classical pieces by Bach and Beethoven as a teenager along with developing her interest in song writing.

Discovering jazz, she would listen to Betty Carter and Carmen McRae as well as learning jazz standards. These early influences would remain with Laura, strengthening her belief that improvisation is important in life and music, and spontaneity should be encouraged in both. This spontaneity can be heard in Laura’s song writing that capture the up and downs of life and the gamut of human emotions. The title track tells of returning home and a new beginning. The bright and optimistic delivery of the lyrics is echoed in Duncan Eagles’s wonderful dialogue with the Laura and Sam Leaks uplifting piano. This uplifting feeling is also a feature of the inspirational ‘All Is Not Lost’, with the contributions of Eagles and Leak lifting Laura’s vocals and the meaning in the lyrics, instilling the belief that one can achieve their dreams.

The range of emotion brought to the lyric by Laura’s warm and rich voice are further demonstrated on the pensive ballad ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’. Leaks’s piano accompaniment echoes the sentiments of the lyrics, while the tenor saxophone line has a hint of resignation and loneliness. So compelling is Laura’s hushed tones of acceptance along with contrasting defiance that one can feel the emotions of heartache, loss and anger.

With Returning To Myself, Laura Lantano has produced an album of contemporary songs that draw on life experiences that are easily relatable. A powerful statement from a new breed of singer / songwriter that acknowledges the traditional and finding her own voice in the process.

Laura Lantano