# Take Five runs hot and cool: Lionel Loueke, Wayne Horvitz, Tord Gustavsen and more: Photos, Videos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/09/29/take-five-runs-hot-and-cool-lionel-loueke-wayne-horvitz-tord-gustavsen-and-more-photos-videos/
- Published: 2018-09-29T00:01:16+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**From jazz and poetry to the plight of immigrants, Take Five looks at five new 
tunes that explore cultural currency in music.**

**Lionel Loueke, “Mandé”**

The immigrant experience is far from an abstraction for Lionel Loueke. Born and 
raised in the West African country of Benin, where he first began playing guitar,
he came to the United States almost 20 years ago, for conservatory. (At the Berklee
College of Music he met the members of his longtime trio, who later joined him at
the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.)

![Lionel Loueke, whose new album is 'The Journey'](https://i0.wp.com/mediad.publicbroadcasting.
net/p/wbgo/files/styles/medium/public/201809/4__lionel_loueke___jean-baptiste_millot.
jpeg?w=640)

On a new album, _The Journey,_ releasing this Friday on Aparté Music, Loueke draws
inspiration from the plight of immigrants and asylum seekers in our current climate.“
The crisis of the refugees is a humanitarian crisis,” he says in a press statement,
reflecting a perspective shared by one of his mentors, pianist and UNESCO Goodwill
Ambassador Herbie Hancock.

_The Journey _was produced by Loueke and Robert Sadin, who created some of the album’s
subtle atmospherics. Its musical core is the suave yet sinewy rapport between Loueke,
the brilliant electric bassist Pino Palladino and the wily percussionist Cyro Baptista.(
Loueke’s regular trio mates, Massimo Biolcati and drummer Ferenc Nemeth, turn up
on one track.)

“Mandé,” inspired by West African griots, begins with Dramane Dembélé’s pastoral
invocation on peul flute, a three-hole flute (also known as a “fule”). Loueke sings
on the track, his lyric consisting entirely of the title, a nod to the Mandé people
of West Africa. The percussionist on the track is Christi Joza Orisha; the wailing
soprano saxophone solo, roughly three-and-a-half minutes in, is by John Ellis. The
lilting, bittersweet glow is all Loueke.

**Wayne Horvitz, “Northampton”**

Speaking of a lilting, bittersweet glow, pianist Wayne Horvitz has a new album, 
_The Snowghost Sessions, _due  Oct. 5 on Songlines. Named after the site of its 
creation, an audiophile studio in Montana, the album contains about a dozen new 
compositions, a couple of them played twice. They cohere by way of a mood: interior,
reflective and proudly self-contained. Consider “Northampton,” which Horvitz originally
performed in that northeastern burg, for solo piano and electronics.

The track begins with the simplest of drum beats, courtesy of Eric Eagle. When the
piano melody arrives, cushioned by a low hum of Hammond B-3 organ, the moment registers
as a wry soundtrack to whatever quotidian act you may be engaging with: fixing a
sandwich, or checking your email. Horvitz’s trio, which also has Geoff Harper on
bass, isn’t interested in showing its cards all at once (though a few other tracks
do ratchet up the temperature). There’s a laconic integrity in this music, a conviction
that sometimes less can actually just be less, to the betterment of all.

**Eddie Palmieri, “Sun Sun Babaé”**

No, it hasn’t been long since we last heralded a new album by Eddie Palmieri, the
ebullient grandmaster of salsa. Two months ago Palmieri, 81, released _Full Circle_,
a program of retooled classics from his book. Now this indefatigable pianist and
bandleader has announced an album called _Mi Luz Mayor_, set for release on December
7 on Uprising Music, an imprint of Ropeadope. News of the album landed a few days
ago, along with a lead single, “Sun Sun Babaé.”

The song, a Rogelio Martínez tune associated with Tito Rodríguez and Celia Cruz,
rests on a presumption of rhythm churn, which Palmieri is only too happy to oblige.
_Mi Luz Mayor, _which he has dedicated to his late wife, Iraida, consists of music
that they loved in their youth. The album features three stellar vocal guests, and
on this track the featured _salsero_ is Gilberto Santa Rosa, who comports himself
with as much sparkling authority as you’d expect from him.

**Tord Gustavsen Trio, “Re-Melt”**

The acclaimed Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen came to prominence with an acoustic
trio, some 15 years ago. After the untimely death of his bassist, Harald Johnsen,
in 2011, Gustavsen moved into other ensemble formats, largely eschewing the arrangement
of piano, bass and drums. So one piece of good news about _The Other Side_, just
out on ECM, is that it brings Gustavsen back to the trio fold. Even better: his 
working trio, with original drummer Jarle Vespestad and fine new bassist Sigurd 
Hole, operates with a baseline urgency, a sense of having something pressing to 
say right now. Consider a track called “Re-Melt.”

Gustavsen still has a fondness for cathedral sonorities that ring of the ancients.
But here he locks in with a groove, making his band mates equal partners in locomotion.
His solo, too, has a feeling of calmly unfolding suspense. There’s more than one
good reason to try and catch the Tord Gustavsen Trio on its brief North American
tour, which kicks off on Tuesday at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.

**Helen Sung with Dana Gioia, “Pity the Beautiful”**

Perhaps you know _Sung with Words _from NPR First Listen or Salon Sessions. A music-
and-poetry project in the truest sense, with pianist Helen Sung and poet Dana Gioia
in close collaboration, it branches beyond that core, with additional vocals by 
Carolyn Leonhart, Christie Dashiell, Jean Baylor and Charenee Wade. The first-rate
band includes Ingrid Jensen on trumpet and John Ellis on saxophones and bass clarinet,
among others, and Sung’s writing is assertive and grounded. This short video, by
Yasunari Rowan, adds an additional layer of sensory information to the mix, taking
smart liberties with “Pity the Beautiful.”

_Sung with Words_ was released earlier this month, and Sung has been a moving target
since: having just wrapped up a run with Coltrane Revisited, she’ll perform this
week with the Mingus Big Band (Monday at Jazz Standard); with Leonhart (Thursday
at Smalls); and in the premiere of Cécile McLorin Salvant’s _Ogresse_ (Friday at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art). She’ll present _Sung with Words _on Saturday at
the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, in Brookville, N.Y.

![Картинки по запросу Wayne Horvitz, Tord Gustavsen](https://i0.
wp.com/www.waynehorvitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Gravtas-72-960x540.jpg?resize
=640%2C360)

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