It may be technically correct to label Arve Henriksen a “jazz trumpeter”, but it feels wrong. He does come from a jazz background, and he does play the trumpet. But he plays the trumpet in a manner that, to these ears at least, doesn’t conform to any usual notions of jazz.

Rather, Henriksen’s trumpet playing shows the heavy influence of the shakuhachi, a Japanese flute traditionally used by Buddhist monks as an aid for meditation and known for its breathy, otherworldly tones. Henriksen’s playing is often the model of restraint: he can kick up a whirling dervish of sound but his tone is often much more contemplative and stately, pulsing here and there amidst gasps and wisps of sound that can be surprisingly evocative given their slight structure.

Likewise, calling Cartography, Henriksen’s first album for the venerable ECM label, a “jazz album” may be technically correct, but it, too, feels wrong. As is the case with Henriksen’s playing, the term “jazz” just doesn’t do the music here justice. There may be moments that could fall under “traditional” ideas of jazz, but the album’s sonic palette is broader than that, venturing into the wide expanse of ambient and experimental music. The result is a record that is obtuse at times, loosely structured (if at all), and meandering, but is also very evocative and stirring.

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Not too long ago, what must have been a dream came true for Madlib.  He was given access to the vaults of the prestigious Blue Note jazz label, to decades of recordings with permission to sample them and craft something new and unique for his new album.  Now that’s quite a bit to entrust to someone, even a producer as acclaimed as Madlib, so who can blame Blue Note if they were a bit, shall we say, concerned?  So sprinkled throughout Shades Of Blue are numerous phonecalls from people associated with the Blue Note label (Melvin Sparks, Reuben Williams, Leon Spencer) inquiring about the album’s progress, expressing interest as to how, exactly, Madlib would be reworking their music.

More than likely, the calls were just out of sheer professional curiosity.  However, if the callers’ intent was to check up on Madlib, to ensure that he didn’t do anything sacreligious to the Blue Note legacy, then they probably breathed a collective sigh of relief upon hearing the finished product.

Madlib does nothing to screw with Blue Note’s recordings.  Nothing whatsoever.  Shades Of Blue is a very safe and careful album, reverent even (more than one of the songs espouses the importance of Blue Note to the world of jazz—i.e. “Blue Note Interlude”).  Perhaps too reverent, as is indicated by the amount of namedropping.  (We got it, Madlib—you worked with famous musicians.  Enough already!)

But all of the reverence in the world can’t make Shades Of Blue an interesting album.  Sure, the album’s overall relaxed tone implies that it’d be perfect background music for swank chill-out sessions.  I’m sure there are plenty of hipsters out there who will dig Shades Of Blue for one of their next parties, where everyone lounges around the posh digs, drinking mixed drinks and carrying on conversations until the wee hours of the morning.  But as I listened to it closely, I was surprised at how blase it was.

Shades Of Blue is smooth, no doubt about that.  So smooth, in fact, that it barely leaves any impression on its way down.

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Like Four Tet, Jaga Jazzist is another one of those groups that I’ve heard others raving about for quite some time now. And within listening to the first minute of this CD, I can see why. “Animal Chin” kicks things off with an exuberance that sounds like Stereolab’s “Dots And Loops” suddenly tossed into a blender set to “puree”. Skittering drums and vibes scurry to and fro beneath bouncy synths, woodwinds, and horn arrangements.

As the track continues, it feels like some of that energy starts to leach off. The sounds grow a little darker; the atmospheres a bit more restrained. However, as if the track suddenly realized it didn’t like where it was heading, everything resets itself back to the original settings.

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Mention words like “free jazz” and “improvisation” to most people, and they’ll probably imagine some sweaty-faced, bug-eyed, red-cheeked saxophonist making all manner of ungodly racket with his instrument. And by “racket”, I mean stuff that sounds more like constipated goats than anything that resembles “real” music. Speaking personally, I often fall into that category. While I can appreciate the concept of improvisational music, much of what I hear fails to excite or interest me in the slightest. On the contrary, I usually find it annoying, perplexing, and simply put, ugly on both aesthetic and emotional levels.

After a few initial listens, it seemed like Supersilent’s 6 would elicit a similar response. While some of the sounds I heard were intriguing, they failed to really resonate on any level in the following weeks. The album seemed destined to remain an oddity in my CD collection, its spartan packaging lost in the piles. However, and I still can’t fully comprehend the how’s or why’s, the disc suddenly clicked one day while I was listening to it at work. And it happened right when I was about to permanently write off the disc as a loss. Whereas before I had heard a formless jumble of sounds, I found something beautiful and truly intriguing.

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