Ralph Alessi, Jason Moran, Drew Gress & Nasheet Waits
Release Date: 07 October 2013
Label: ECM
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 602537253043
Genres: Jazz Contemporary
Description
There are magic moments when an artist can be said to have well and truly "arrived". For Ralph Alessi, the release of Baida - his ECM debut as a bandleader - is just such a moment, despite his already extensive resumé.
Among those in the know, Alessi is renowned as a musician's musician, a first-call New York trumpeter who can play virtually anything on sight and has excelled as an improviser in groups led by Steve Coleman, Uri Caine, Ravi Coltrane, Fred Hersch and Don Byron, as well as leading his own bands. But Alessi has created something breathtaking with Baida, an album sure to beguile a wider audience with its atmospheric depth and melodic allure.
To voice his suite of compositions, the trumpeter has convened a powerhouse New York band with pianist Jason Moran, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Nasheet Waits. As a vessel for the album's seemingly bottomless lyricism, this quartet of virtuosos plays with extraordinary finesse; but there is also a tensile strength emanating from the performances, a muscularity that one can feel. Then there is the silver of Alessi's trumpet tone; as The New York Times has said, it has "a rounded luminescence, like the moon in full phase."
Baida was recorded in October 2012 at New York City's Avatar Studios, with Manfred Eicher helming the session. Framing Baida (the name comes from the word the trumpeter's toddler daughter uses for "blanket") is the enthralling melody of Alessi's title composition - at deeply atmospheric length to open the album and in a lyrically flowing reprise to close.
Personnel: Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Jason Moran (piano), Drew Gress (double bass), Nasheet Waits (drums)
Tracklisting
Norma Winstone & Kit Downes
Oded Tzur
Kenny Wheeler, Lee Konitz, Dave Holland & Bill Frisell
Fred Hersch
John Taylor, Norma Winstone & Kenny Wheeler
Keith Jarrett & Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek Quartet
John Surman
Elaine Delmar
Ross McHenry
Open Thread (Peggy Lee, Julien Wilson, Theo Carbo, Dylan van der Schyff)
Antonio Farao
Mark Guiliana
Nigel Price Organ Trio
Conrad Herwig
Norma Winstone & Kit Downes
