Criss Cross Jazz new releases November 2024

Some might think that guitarist Oz Noy, a celebrated voice in jazz-fusion over the last quarter century for applying his formidable guitar chops to funky rhythms and blues-based changes on 13 leader albums and hundreds of plugged-in concert performances, is not an obvious fit for Criss Cross, whose 420+-album catalog connects almost exclusively to the various tributaries of the hardcore acoustic jazz river.
 

Noy, 52, begs to differ. “I’ve known about Criss Cross since my brother brought home albums when I was a teenager,” he says, discussing the back story of his label debut, Fun One (Criss 1422), a creative, sophisticated and, shall we say, swinging trio encounter with pianist David Kikoski, bassist James Genus and drummer Clarence Penn. “I know Peter Bernstein’s albums and Adam Rogers’ albums. I love Mike Moreno’s last album. I know how the albums sound. I started to study jazz chords and harmony when I was 13. I started making a living playing pop and rock music when I was 15 or 16, and for all my years in New York I’ve had an electric trio that plays groove music mixed with jazz and funk that’s enabled me to get a record deal and make albums. But I’ve been playing standards and jazz all my life, and probably since 2017 with this quartet. I’ve just never recorded it.”

The album was recorded July 26 & 27, 2024 at the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio in Astoria by recording engineer Mike Marciano. He also did the editing, mixing and mastering at Systems Two.

When eminent jazz practitioners with shared histories convene in the studio without rehearsal or preparatory gigs, a perfunctory, by-the-numbers session is often the outcome. That is decidedly not the case on Solid Jackson (Criss 1423), whose personnel, four of whom participated on the well-wrought day-after-Christmas of 1994 Criss Cross album titled Consenting Adults (Criss 1177), reside in any hardcore jazz connoisseur’s “top-five”. This second gathering of M.T.B. (titled for the surnames of Brad Mehldau, Mark Turner and Peter Bernstein, and to signify upon the late ’80s “young lion” band OTB) is an intense, focused recital that reinforces the exalted position each member holds in the 2024 jazz landscape. Everyone listens. No one overplays or goes for “house.” The ambiance is one of concentrated excellence.
 

Consenting Adults (Criss 1177) wasn’t released until 2000, six years after it was made. In the liner notes the protagonists (Larry Grenadier, then and now, played bass; Leon Parker, the drummer in 1994, gives way to Bill Stewart) were described as “elite young improvisers who will be among the movers and shakers of 21st century jazz at the conclusion of their postgraduate education.”

The album was recorded November 25 & 26, 2023 at the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio in Astoria by recording engineer Mike Marciano. He also did the editing, mixing and mastering at Systems Two.

“Every record is a bit different,” Misha Tsiganov noted at the end of the liner notes for Misha’s Wishes, his fourth Criss Cross album (Criss 1409), on which, for the first time on Criss Cross, he played primarily his original compositions and plugged in on the Fender Rhodes.
 

Like its predecessor, Painter Of Dreams features two highly reworked standards along with six recent melody-forward compositions, to which Tsiganov applies his signature blend of radical reharmonization, mixed meters, shifting tempos, and changing keys. Otherwise, this ambitious recital documents several “firsts.” For one thing, Tsiganov expands beyond the saxophone-trumpet- piano-bass-drums format, scoring five of the eight selections for either three or four horns. For another, he broadens his tonal palette beyond the almost entirely acoustic soundscape of his prior Criss Cross oeuvre, liberally weaving the Rhodes and Minimoog into the flow, as well as the preternaturally flexible voice of Hiske Oosterwijk, who also contributes two lyrics. Also, for the first time as a leader, Tsiganov augments the luminous trumpeter-flugelhornist (and 13-time Criss Cross leader) Alex Sipiagin on the front line with alto sax titan Miguel Zenón, who plays for the entirety of the proceedings, and – on three pieces – the transcendent Chris Potter on tenor and soprano saxophones.
 

“The earlier records had different songs and moods, but the same sound – trumpet-saxophone-piano-bass-drums,” Tsiganov says. “I wanted a totally different color.” While working on the repertoire, he drew on information accrued in arranging courses with Michael Mossman at Queens College, where he earned a Masters in 2019. “That opened the gate of big band music for me,” Tsiganov says.

The album was recorded January 6, 2024 at the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio in Astoria by recording engineer Mike Marciano. He also did the editing, mixing and mastering at Systems Two.

“I’m proud to be part of Criss Cross,” Antonio Faraò says of his maiden voyage for the label. 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, Faraò’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 Faraò 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 “postbop” 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.
 

“I like to play in the straight-ahead way, but at the same time be open, out of the box” Faraò says. “Playing this way allows me freedom, and this rhythm section knows how to manage that dimension. I don’t think about anything when I play. I try to follow the line. When you start thinking is when you make a mistake. You should play natural. Live yourself. Form the way. When I compose, my inspiration is usually from the past, when I was a teenager. It’s rare that I’m inspired by the future.”

The album was recorded July 26, 2023 at Studio de Meudon in Paris by Julien Basseres, and edited, mixed and mastered by Mike Marciano at Systems Two.

Gregory Groover’s Criss Cross debut, recorded on the Boston born-and-bred tenor saxophonist’s thirtieth birthday, is a tour de force. Joined by a bespoke sextet of his favorite players: Joel Ross, Matthew Stevens, Aaron Parks, Vicente Archer and Marcus Gilmore, all New York-based, Groover presents a recital of 11 original tone-parallels to family and friends, his intentions anticipated, illuminated and fulfilled by his gifted bandmates. Lovabye follows Groover’s formidable first full-length album.
 

During the lockdown, Groover had generated a group of “love songs and songs of people I love.” In spring 2023, he brought this music to Walter Smith III, who Groover had idolized as a teenager, and is now his friend and colleague at Berklee School of Music, their mutual alma mater, where Groover serves as Assistant Chair of the Ensemble Department. “I told Walter I’d like to play with some of my other heroes and peers,” Groover recalls. “He said, ‘What’s stopping you? The music is there.’ Luckily for me, everyone who I wanted to record with was available and happy to do it.”
 

“Greg’s composing supports how he plays,” Smith says. “He’s a thematic musician, whose playing very much relates to the song. He plays with a lot of energy, and he leads with that. The heart is the most important thing – the direction and motion of what he plays is where he really feels.

The album was recorded August 16, 2023 at GSI Studios in New York City, and edited, mixed and mastered by Mike Marciano at Systems Two.