Points - Points - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

I'm proud to be part of Criss Cross, Antonio Fara• says of his maiden voyage for the tag. For the occasion, which transpired in Meudon Studios in Paris in July 2023, the Milan-based pianist, then 58, convened an equivalently virtuosic trio comprising bassist John Patitucci and drummer Jeff Ballard, presented them with eight originals and two standards, and let them loose. Each member operates at a creative peak on this lyric, kinetic, beautifully proportioned 65-minute recital. Titled Tributes, Fara•'s Criss Cross debut is closer in feel and attitude to the albums Black Inside, Thorn and Next Stories, recorded for Enja between 1998 and 2001, where Fara• joined forces, respectively, with top-of-the-pyramid, New York-seasoned masters Ira Coleman and Jeff Watts, Drew Gress and Jack deJohnette, and Ed Howard and Gene Jackson. Functioning completely as a peer, he addresses the dialects of his pianistic heroes - universal InchpostbopInch influences as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Kenny Kirkland, as well as Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner, Lennie Tristano, and Martial Solal - on their own terms of engagement, with the fluency of a native speaker. He assimilates their styles, refracts them into a personal argot, alchemizing challenging rhythms and highbrow harmony into graceful melodies. He eschews ironic deflection and gratuitous structural complication, sustaining an attitude of in-the-moment creation and a fierce will to swing. The Album was recorded July 26, 2023 at Studio de Meudon, Paris. Recording engineer Julien Basseres. Sound engineer Mike Marciano did the mixing and mastering at Systems Two in NYC. Photography by Marco Glaviano.

Following two electrifying studio albums and a live recording, the Inchsupergroup-three musicians who are among the most exciting and active that the European avant-garde has to offfferInch (Jazzthetik) presents another thrilling album Kompress. Hailed by critics as genre-bending and described as an avant-garde force within the jazz piano trio , the group opens up a wide range of associative spaces and impressively demonstrates how a working band, through deep trust and the resulting fearlessness, can continue to evolve and explore new musical paths. Ulrich Stock writes in the liner notes InchThis is what I find most fascinating about this album the now. This music is totally now alert, full of nervous energy, multiple perspectives. But in every pore lives the past. It is there, part of it, finely dispersed, dissolved, transcendedInch and adds InchTill just then I would still have interpreted the album title Kompress to mean condensed, which certainly fits the world in a disk. But now I read it as a compress, something cushioning a wound, which helps ease the pain of the damage inflicted by present-day assaults.Inch

One of the leading artists of modern Czech jazz, saxophonist Luboš Soukup reunites his band InchPointsInch and has broadened it into a septet for this album. Points Septet is made up of the best Czech saxophone and horn players, and is backed up by a phenomenal rhythm duo. This album contains modern and cherished music on the line between contemporary classical music and improvisation. Soukup himself has labeled it as a Inchuniverse of sounds.Inch