Of What Remains is Montreal baritone saxophonist and bassoonist Melissa Pipe’s first release as a leader. It explores ideas around temporality: the shifting of time, form and being. The pieces form a whole, joining together fragmentation, symbiosis, distillation, evaporation, and transience, while looking at what is left behind, or what remains.

“The sextet's instrumentation allows me to write in both traditional jazz ensemble configuration (trumpet and saxes with the rhythm section) and in a “chamber jazz” format,” says Pipe about choosing the unique instrumentation and writing for her sextet. “The additional colour, timbre and orchestration possibilities of the bassoon and the bass clarinet are particularly effective in infusing elements of classical and folkloric music into the pieces”.

Her compositions here range from moody, atmospheric pieces to more traditional styles like a minor blues, but most tend to be on the darker, introspective side. “I write what I hear. Sometimes it starts with a bass line, a progression. Sometimes it’s a melody. The pieces on this album use a variety of jazz and classical compositional devices and techniques, but beyond the theoretical framework that I use to build its structures, harmonies, textures, etc. the most important thing for me is that it has to have soul. It has to be something my ear wants to hear. At times that can be something more modern, and at others something steeped in the jazz tradition: to me it goes beyond genres, it’s all about the soul of the thing.”

In addition to leading her own group, Pipe also performs regularly with jazz, hip hop, indie, and classical ensembles as a freelancer. She also had the honour of interviewing Yusef Lateef, whose playing and compositional style have greatly influenced her, for an article about his double reed playing which was published in The Double Reed, as well as on Lateef’s website. In 2014, she was invited to perform her arrangements of Charles Mingus pieces for bassoon quartet at the Jazz Standard in NYC alongside Michael Rabinowitz, Paul Hanson and Mark Ortwein, as part of the International Double Reed Society conference.

Melissa Pipe: baritone sax, bassoon

Lex French: trumpet

Philippe Côté: tenor sax, bass clarinet

Geoff Lapp: piano

Solon McDade: bass

Mili Hong, drums

w/ Michael Sundell, contrabassoon select tracks

Produced by: Philippe Côté and Melissa Pipe

Recorded and mixed by: Paul Johnston

Mastered by: Guy Hébert

Released April 2023 on ODD SOUND

Melissa Pipe Website

Based in Basel with Japanese-Polish roots, acclaimed Swiss singer, composer and producer Yumi Ito grew up immersed in three different cultures. Her latest offering, Ysla, takes its name from the Old Portuguese for "island" and invites the listener on a journey across both a metaphorical ocean and a stylistic vista which takes in jazz, art-pop and neo-classical music.

Mixing an intricate jazz technique with hints of great singer-songwriters including Bjork and Joni Mitchell, ‘Ysla’ deals with the themes of loneliness & separation, disaster and rebirth, taking inspiration from nature, psychology, and sociology, as well as current contemporary history.

The multidimensional perspective on identity, community and travelling across borders that her upbringing afforded plays a large role in her work. “I began to envision a conception of identity that is more open and inclusive than any nationality or other label. I set out to fashion my own, inner world – to find a way to exist and communicate with others in such a way that transcended the particulars of any one of these cultures.

The seven original compositions are closely connected to Yumi Ito's personhood and tell of her path of reflection and self-discovery. In this process, Ito has also developed her vocal improvisation into a "universal" language that can be understood anywhere.  

“In recent years, I’ve worked on new music in Iceland, Galicia (Cies) and Greece (Milos), which - like my father's country of origin, Japan - are all islands. Travelling there has generated distance and time to get to know myself better.”

Seamlessly bridging the gap between student at Switzerland’s prestigious Jazz Campus where she was part of the Focus Year Band, and vocal professor at one of the country’s leading music schools, Yumi has already worked with a host of modern greats (Mark Turner, Al Jarreau, Becca Stevens) and in constellations from solo through to full orchestra.

For this trip, she retains long-time colleagues (and key features of the Yumi Ito Orchestra) in Kuba Dworak (double bass) and Iago Fernández (drums), alongside Chris Hyson (synths) and Szymon Mika (guitar). Here, for the first time, she recorded all the piano parts herself, with the complex keyboard patterns that ring out under layers of vocals, conjuring an other-worldly feel.

Effortlessly, the group manoeuvres through a veritable genre ocean of ambient sounds, mystical grooves, and soulful songs. The sound of the core trio is extended into an immersive world of delicately plucked guitars, rich synth timbres, cello layers and modern production with a pop sensibility.

With increasingly mature musicianship, and a deep sense of storytelling in the spotlight, Ito’s music is honest and full of heart; it possesses the capacity to connect with anyone who will listen. “I hope my music allows people to look at the familiar from a distance: to grant them access to a space where they might be open to reflection and reinvention.”

Yumi Ito | Vocals, Piano, Composition, Lyrics Kuba Dworak| Double Bass

Iago Fernández| Drums                                                                     

Artist website

Lakiko is a cello that strokes, scratches, repeats itself and disappears. Lakiko is also a voice, singing about a nomadic existence, Bosnian nightmares, an archaic past and a dystopian future

What To Do, How To Live?is Lakiko’s debut album and issung almost entirely in Bosnian using a vocal technique from the Sevdalinka tradition. A piece of experimental performance, the artistic vision was drawn out of a period of deep contemplation, looking backwards, reflecting on the modern Balkan experience, her growing up in Sarajevo, and the scars and hardships that city and people have had to endure and thinking about how their future will unfold. The accompanying short film, Lakiko – A Hybrid Idea, directed by German director Manfred Borsch was shot in various locations in and around Sarajevo and has won awards including Best Director at Stockholm City Film 2022 and will be publicly released in March 2023.

Now residing in Lucerne, Switzerland and having trained as a classical cellist in Bremen and the University of Arts in Bern, Lakiko AKA Lana Kostić created her sonic world with the assistance of the neurology department in Biel. Connected to an EEG machine, the cellist experimented with exercising her free will using instruments, simultaneously using her brain waves as a score. The resulting material led to a series of live shows across Europe and it re-framed her musical outlook with a shower of new influences and sounds shaping her musical being. Bosnian folk, off-kilter classical, endless glissandi loops, eerie and fidgeting electronics and the cello, again and again, plucked, scratched, silent and angry.

All Lakiko’s songs are steeped in political sentiment “but in my very non-political way” with topics about the chances, or lack of, of changing social class (Tobogan), gender equality (The Woman Is Stronger Than the Man in Me), and our tendency as society to repeat the same things over and over again (Junaci). For Lakiko, art and politics are forever present and entwined.“Music is the biggest part of my life. Conversely, my life is the biggest part of my music” she explains*.* As anartist, as a woman and as of very recently, as a mother, Lakiko’s purpose is one of many questions she constantly ponders. The title of the album, What To Do, How To Live? came about years before, overhearing another musician joking around. But for Lakiko, this question repeats over and over and has become a permanent narrative.

Lana’s first introduction to the cello was a rather curious one that took place when she was only 4 years old. “I was riding with my mother in the elevator and humming something, and the concertmaster of the Zagreb Philharmonic at the time, who was also in the elevator, told me that I had good hearing and huge hands and  that I had to play the cello," she says. That meeting in a lift changed her life forever.

As a classical cellist Lana performs as a soloist, with orchestras and in various chamber music ensembles like Zürcher Oper, Theater Bern and Theater Bremen. She collaborated in various interdisciplinary projects such as in the film Dvorak who? (directed by Jan Harlan - executive producer of Stanley Kubrick), in contemporary theatre (Biennale Munich) and with dance groups  (Lucerne Kunsthalle, Chollerhalle Zug).  When watching Lakiko perform on a stage or on screen, it’s sometimes difficult to see the separation between music and theatre, as she is constantly moving, gesticulating, and dramatising. Yet her presence, and her emotion is all-powerful, introverted but absolutely real.

The dark and introspective combination of acoustic cello energised by a range of bewildering effects with mystical other-worldly singing and vocalisations,  is arresting and powerful. All the more so, with her hard-hitting subject matter which she says could only have been sung in her mother tongue of Bosnian, as there are no other words to express these thoughts.

 "My 'loudest' feeling is that I can't change anything, and I don't want to accept those rules of the game. After all, I left Sarajevo. That's why I always have to point out that I have no right to criticise or say anything. But even though I left Sarajevo and BiH, it didn't leave me, so I'm still dealing with it through music," concludes Kostić.

Artist website

Margherita Fava’s new album TATATU: Produced by Rodney Whitaker, featuring Greg Tardy

Jazz today is full of whiz kids with plenty of virtuosity at their disposal but with little to say musically. The Italian-born Margherita Fava is something altogether different. The evidence is all over her debut recording, TATATU.

At 27, Fava is not only a fluent pianist but also a compelling composer and bandleader — creative, communicative, and less interested in surface flash than forging an emotional connection with listeners and expressing an individual concept through a band built in her image. Fava has a sharp mind for savvy musical forms but also a sensitive ear for expressive storytelling. She is not just interested in the what of music but the why. “She’s very soulful,” says the widely recorded bassist Rodney Whitaker, who produced TATATU and mentored Fava at Michigan State University, where he directs the award-winning jazz program. “I’ve never been around anyone writing at this stage in her life where the tunes have so much feeling. Even when she decides to be hip or more complicated harmonically, her music stays melodic. Everything is lyrical and singable.” “Bird of Passage,” for example, unfolds like a short story. It’s through-composed with a sinuous melody, folkish rhythm, multiple sections, and a Sephardic feeling carried by Greg Tardy’s eloquent clarinet. He improvises over a chromatic vamp, before Fava’s composed bridge leads to her articulate piano solo over new harmony. Tardy reenters with more melody and even more intense improvising over the vamp. A brief reprise of Fava’s theme leads to a surprising coda: a rhythmic vamp ignited by a drum solo. The bass-and-drum team of Javier Enrique and Michael J Reed underscores the shifting moods with patient maturity.

“I don’t micromanage,” says Fava. “I trust the band to do what they do. I talk in terms of energy and flow. Since I come from the countryside, I try not to be aristocratic. I want to be accessible. You don’t need a degree to understand my music.”

Fava’s quartet balances experience and youth. Tardy, whose thoughtful tenor saxophone and clarinet work brings gravatas to TATATU, is a widely respected veteran with a resume ranging from Andrew Hill and Elvin Jones to Tom Harrell and Dave Douglas. Fava studied composition with him at the University of Tennessee, where she received her master’s degree. Fava formed a close musical bond with Enrique and Reed, when they were students together at Michigan State. All have bright futures.

Fava, who remains based in Knoxville, Tenn., lists many favorite musicians, including pianists Gerald Clayton, Mulgrew Miller, Herbie Hancock, Red Garland, and Bud Powell, and composers Wayne Shorter, Hancock, Booker Little, Roy Hargrove and Dave Douglas. But throughout this program of six originals and two standards, her influences never overwhelm her personality.

From “Face Of,” a lovely song played without improvisation by piano and tenor, to “Restless Mind,” whose rhythmic gamesmanship morphs into a swinging minor blues, the music explores personalized emotions, colors, and textures. The open harmonic vistas of “Hard to Say'' merge with beguiling melodic repetition and counter-lines to create an expansive feeling of music that can go anywhere. An epic, suite-like form, “Resilience” captures the urgency of someone able to bounce back from adversity. The song opens with Tardy’s rubato tenor, before the music segues into contemporary funk with a strong rhythmic hook and then shifts into adventurous post-bop soloing over swinging time with free harmony.

Even the evergreens “Rhythm-a-ning” by Thelonious Monk and the “All the Things You Are” by Jerome Kern, sound refreshed. The latter, recast as a reharmonized waltz, cuts a particularly original profile. “I heard so often in my education that ‘you have to find your own voice,’” Fava says. “And I was like, ‘Ok, I will!’”

Available to buy here

Harpist Brandee Younger is defying expectations. Over the past fifteen years, she has worked relentlessly to stretch boundaries and limitations for harpists.  In 2022, she broke new ground by becoming the first black woman ever to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition. Ever-expanding as an artist, her album, Brand New Life, builds on the already rich oeuvre, seamlessly transcending genre. As the title of the album suggests, Brand New Life is about forging new paths–artistic, personal, political, and spiritual.  “We're bringing new life to Dorothy Ashby’s old compositions. We're creating new life…for the instrument,” Younger said. The album includes original works by Brandee Younger, reinterpretations of Dorothy Ashby classics, along with a couple of covers that redefine the category. 

Tracklist:

Side A

1. You're A Girl For One Man Only (3:59)

2. Brand New Life (feat. Mumu Fresh) (4:32)

3. Come Live With Me (Interlude) (2:23)

4. Livin' and Lovin' in My Own Way (feat. Pete Rock) (4:58)

Side B

1. Running Game Intro (1:07)

2. Running Game (4:39)

3. Moving Target (4:21)

4. Dust (feat. Meshell N’degeocello) (4:36)

5. The Windmills of Your Mind (feat. 9th Wonder) (2:56)

6. If It’s Magic (3:30)

Available here

It’s All We Have is a reflection on the beauty of the world and humanity in contraposition to the power which is exercised in multiple forms on people through extremism, economy and politics leading to denial of rights and environmental threats.Sabino’s compositions create a file rouge through themes from slavery (Whisky) to capitalism (The Extra Something); the women’s condition (Melodia), particularly referring to the actuality in Afghanistan, and the wars led by economical profits but disguised behind good intentions (Cuba Libre); the desperate conditions of children in some areas of the world (Sonhos de Marcelo), the climate change due to human behaviour (A Little Road Not Made Of Man), the uncountable nature magnificence (It’s all I have To Bring Today) and the beauty and power of the unseen in the world (Who Has Seen The Wind?).

The voice of women has been chosen to tell these stories through poems by Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti. These poems bring positivity and hope (Hope) which connects to an inner and more intimate way of interpreting the album title “It’s All We Have” which represents the urge, as artists, to produce music, express ideas, value human beauty against the struggle that everyone goes through in the everyday life. Within this vision, Diana contributes, as an interpreter and as a writer of the lyrics of two songs that offer a further reflection on human relationships (Beyond Clouds) and the opportunity coming from unexpected experiences than can totally lift you up and transform us and our existence…“In Spite of Everything”.

Diana Torti and Sabino de Bari started their musical path in 2006. Over time, they have been exploring musical boundaries through composition and improvisation, merging their wide experience and skills in various genres and styles of music (from contemporary classical, to jazz and early music). Since their first album, “Voices”, sextet, to the most recent, “On a Cloud”, as a duo, they have been successfully navigating musical territories where the exploration of sounds and timbre possibilities were mixed with rich harmonies and refined melodies as well as recall of Mediterranean culture and sounds.

All tracks composed by Sabino de Bari

Lyrics: Emily Dickinson (tracks 4,6,10), Christina Rossetti (track 3), Diana Torti (tracks 2,11), Sabino de Bari (tracks 1,8), John Hay (track 5)

Sabino de Bari - compositions, lyrics, guitar

Diana Torti - vocals, lyrics

Recorded at Four Walls Studio in Giovinazzo (Italy), in December 2022

Mixing & Mastering by Sabino de Bari

Photo by Monika S. Jakubowska

Graphics by Cristina Lombardi

Links to buy here