Sunday Music Muse Day - Bill Frisell. The Nels Cline Singers

This fine Sunday Music Muse Day, finds us out of Thanksgiving leftovers. (We finished the last piece of pecan pie last night while watching a movie on Netflix)  So, today started with a normal weekly grocery shopping trip, before settling in for some afternoon jazz. Unfortunately, this will be brief, since both selections are less the enjoyable.  First is Bill Frisell Silent Comedy.  Believe me, if you buy, and  listen to it, you'll find the joke's on you.  I'm a big Frisell fan, and even got my 80+ year old mother-in-law into his music. But Silent Comedy sound like Frisell just doodling around with a new guitar effects rack without reading the instruction.  There is no real structure, or direction to the music. Only a hard core Bill Frisell completest, should go anywhere near this.  You've been warned.

I had to give my next selection a little bit of a break, The Nels Cline Singers Instrumentals.  I knew his music would be experimental and out there.  I'm not really familiar with vocal versions.  There is a musical concept here, free-form rock/jazz (?), but not one I lean toward.  So, this gets another pass for me, although there are some interest sections.

I'll give myself points for stepping out of my comfort zone in giving these both a full listen.  You win some, you lose some.

Sunday Music Muse Day - John Scofield, Nels Cline & Julian Lage

Today Sunday Music Muse Day  presents guitar three guitarists, one solo and a two in a duet.  First is John Scofield in his self titled solo outing for ECM, his first for ECM and his first solo release in his nearly fifty year professional career.  This is much anticipated release, by me and other long time fans. It is a introspective  collection showing Scofield eclectic taste in his tune selection, a jazz standard, traditional, country, and pop, plus originals.  He choose to use just electric guitar and looper (a device for live performance over dubbing).  Over all,  I can't say this solo effort is totally engaging. It feels more like a afternoon of noodling. It maybe be unfair to it compared to John Abercrombie first solo ECM album, Characters, (one of my all time favorite albums) make with full studio overdubbing, this Scofield session come off as nice but not memorable. I would like to hear as more fully realized solo effort from Scofield, I think he still it in him.

The duet CD is Nels Cline & Julian Lage Room. This too is more introspective listening experience,  a 4/5 star online review states, 'Each track has its own character, but the entire album is permeated by the two guitarists' inventiveness and sensitive accompanying ability."  I would agree this, this intimate session at times reminds me of John McLaughlin solo pieces on his My Goals Beyond. Well worth seeking this out this 2014 release.

Enjoy.

Sunday Music Muse Day - Gregg Bendian, John Zorn

This Sunday Music Muse day has me venturing slightly off the beaten path.   What both selection have in common is that are concept projects inspired by other media, comic books, and movies.  First up Gregg Bendian's Interzone: Requiem for Jack Kirby. Gregg  is jazz fusion vibraphonist that with his group Interzone plays a mix of free-jazz and fusion.  Free jazz musicans, Nels Cline (guitar) and brother  Alex Cline (drums)  play on the project. This 1999 released is tribute to my comic hero Jack Kirby, the legendary comic book artist best known for creating and co-creating with Stan Lee Marvel Comics characters so popular in the Marvel Cinema Universe movies hitting the theaters today. Bendian post on the Jack Kirby Face page that a remastered version of Requiem for Jack Kirby was available on his website.  I have seen it on Youtube before. But I went old school and found a CD onliine. I'm glad I did since it has a nice fold out poster and KIrby art graphics on the CD.  The music is good, and worth a listen.  I used it as a soundtrack while reading the Kirby's Forth World saga, which he did for DC comics after leaving Marvel.

My second selection is also by a free jazz musican, John Zorn The Big Gundown: John Zorn plays the Music On Ennio Morricone - The 15th Anniversary Edition.  I know of John Zorn as  Free Jazz, as in "out there" type of music from CDs with Bill Frisell, who play on one cut on this,"landmark album that introduced Zorn's wild musical universe to a larger audience".  Okay, I'll have to take the liner note writer's word that.  Of course I knew Ennio Morricone's music for the Sergio Leone films like A Fistful of Dollar. infamously called Spagetti Westerns.  The music is interesting and "out there, but personally I'd rather hear the originals by Morricone.  But if you want to venture on a musical path less traveled, give this a try.

Stay safe, stay healthy.  And remember...Winter is Coming.