Tag: Ehud Asherie

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Richard Kamins Step Tempest review for Ehud Asherie “Upper West Side”….

steptempest.blogspot.com

Israeli-born pianist Ehud Asherie teams up with tenor saxophonist Harry Allen for an 11-pack of standards, most, if not all composed before either player  was born.  “Upper West Side“, the second CD the duo has recorded for Posi-Tone Records;  they worked with a rhythm section on 2010’s “Modern Life.”  If you have only heard Asherie as a organ player, you should be impressed by his formidable piano work.  There are moments when his left hand has the power associated with “Jelly Roll” Morton or Art Tatum (listen to him fly on (“I Want To Be Happy“)  and one can hear a healthy dollop of Teddy Wilson.  At times, a touch formal but he can be quite playful  (i.e. his “Spanish tinge” on Jobim and Silva’s “O Pato.”)  As for Allen, he’s the perfect foil with his breathy Ben Webster tone and calm demeanor, bluesy smears and airy high notes. He dances his way through his solo on “Learning The Blues” bouncing over the rumbling piano bass and trilling high notes.   His “old world” charm works just fine on “Our Love Is Here ToStay” and does he ever caress Billy Strayhorn’s “Passion Flower” (with more than a hint of Johnny Hodges in his approach.)

“Upper West Side” is a positive experience from beginning to end. By returning to the blues roots of 1930’s piano jazz, Ehud Asherie shows his continuing maturity as a player – his playing throughout command’s one attention.  Harry Allen makes no bones about his roots or “throwback” tenor style.  He also loves melody and his solos are often quite hummable.  Together, they sound as if they are having the best of times; the listener should laugh, sing along and tap his/her feet.  What depression?  This music will drive your “blues” right out of the house.  To find out more, go to www.posi-tone.com.

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Dan Bilawsky’s AAJ review of Ehud Asherie “Upper West Side”…

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=41385

The closing track on pianist Ehud Asherie’s Modern Life(Posi-Tone, 2010), whether intentional or not, came to serve as musical foreshadowing for this album. Modern Lifehas Asherie leading a crack quartet through a program of largely lesser-performed gems by cream-of-the-crop composers like George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Tadd Dameron, but when the album reaches its conclusion the rhythm section is relieved of its duties, while tenor saxophonist Harry Allen stays onboard for an emotionally riveting two-man take on Billy Strayhorn’s “A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing.” Three months later, this pair would find itself in a Brooklyn recording studio, ready to make more duo magic with the music of Gershwin, Strayhorn and many others.

That music from that session, which would come to be called Upper West Side Story, sat on the shelves for two-and-a-half years, but it couldn’t have been due to a lack of quality. This is Grade A jazz performed by two consummate, classy musicians with an intimate knowledge of this repertoire and each other’s mannerisms. They casually work their way through the Frank Sinatra-associated “Learnin’ The Blues,” turning up the heat and grit as they go, deliver playful lines when they visit Brazil (Jayme Silva’s “O Pato”), fly through “I Want To Be Happy,” and converse via traded solos at various points throughout the album.

While Asherie has shown his (post) bop chops and organ abilities on other albums, he has built his reputation on his skills as a practitioner of the lost piano arts which are on display here. He’s often a man out of time, performing in a style that one would sooner associate with the early twentieth century than now, but that’s what makes him so special. Allen, who has his own throwback sound that occasionally touches on stylistic hallmarks of early masters like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins, is in a similar headspace and, though both men can hold their own in modern digs, it’s a pleasure to hear two musicians of this caliber, willing to stop and take a look back.

While the pair finds success on every track, the emotional—and literal—centerpiece of the album comes with another Strayhorn-made musical scenario. Allen is Johnny Hodges to Asherie’s Duke Ellington on “Passion Flower” and despite Allen playing a larger horn he still manages to capture the mood and spirit that surrounded the famous Ellington-associated altoist.

Viewed in its entirety, Upper West Side Story is a program of delightful duo music that doesn’t try to win anybody over with outré ideals, surprise twists or forced displays of showmanship. Allen and Asherie simply play the music, and they do so with clarity, class and charm.

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The Jazz Word writer John Barron on Ehud Asherie “Upper West Side”….

http://thejazzword.blogspot.com

Ehud Asherie w/Harry Allen – Upper West Side

Pianist Ehud Asherie’s previous piano recording—he also plays organ—for Posi-Tone records, Modern Life, was a memorable quartet date featuring tenor saxophonist Harry Allen. For his latest release, Upper West Side, Asherie retains the service of Allen for a more intimate duo setting, showcasing the broad scope of his classic piano jazz style.

Digging in to a set of familiar standards, the pair reaches a hard-swinging common ground early on, propelled by Asherie’s well-balanced left hand/right negotiations, expelling any desire for bass and drums. The infectious grooves created on “It Had to Be You” and the samba “O Pato,” for example, blend the pianist’s refined elegance with Allen’s sly approach, full of bounce and mischief.

A thoughtful contrast in ballad interpretation is provided with “Passion Flower” and “I’m in the Mood for Love,” while “I Want to Be Happy” and “My Blue Heaven” deliver unabashed displays of high-flying chops.

www.posi-tone.com

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Here’s another write-up for Ehud Asherie’s new CD “Upper West Side” featuring Harry Allen…

kenfrancklingjazznotes.blogspot.com

Ehud Asherie with Harry Allen, Upper West Side (Posi-Tone)

Piano and tenor sax duo recordings are the exception rather than the rule, but this teaming of Israeli-born pianist Ehud Asherie and tenor player Harry Allen rules on a number of levels. They principally mine the world of romance ballads on this fine session, but the opener and closer are the true treats because of the multiple facets they reveal in each player’s chops and ideas. Those tracks are Dolores Silvers’ “Learnin’ The Blues” (a Frank Sinatra hit single) and the chestnut “My Blue Heaven.” Allen is best known for his way with a ballad, but he really knows how to tear it up on a frisky blues, or tune a popular song into one as happens on the former. They both stretch the closer, with Asherie working several distinct uptempo styles into his solos and comping. Duos are not everyone’s cup of tea, but these guys make their two instruments sound like a full combo with their creativity. This is Asherie’s fifth CD as a leader.

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The first review is in for our latest CD “Upper West Side” by pianist Ehud Asherie featuring Harry Allen…..

http://somethingelsereviews.com

The talented young pianist Ehud Asherie doesn’t look to bowl you over with sheer speed and power but rather, seduce you with taste and swing. You’re much more likely to hear some of his main influences like Erroll Garner or even James P. Johnson in his approach than, say, McCoy Tyner. For his fifth album Upper West Side, Asherie chose to play without a combo and make this a more direct affair with only a tenor sax with which to share the sound space. And who better to couple up with than the tender, pre-war sax sounds of Harry Allen? No bass and drums are needed to swing, and swing with authority. Just take a gander of their treatment of a great old tune like “I Want To Be Happy,” that sounds every bit as rhythmic as a full big band. Or the unabashedly romantic take on “I’m In The Mood For Love,” where Allen’s sax is as emotive and sensitive as Lester Young’s. Asherie, meanwhile, is able to pivot to and from comping and leading with ease, often blurring the lines between the two. Though all eleven sides are well known, well worn standards, Asherie and Allen breathe new life in them by, ironically, giving them old readings. Perhaps the joy I take from this record comes from there being so few who seem willing these days to take on those tunes like that anymore. Hats off to Ehud Asherie—and Harry Allen—for minding the jazz of a great, forgotten era.

Upper West Side, from Posi-Tone Records, will go on sale January 31.

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Peter Hum weighs on Ehud Asherie and Harry Allen’s old-fashoined swing set “Modern Life”…

jazzblog.ca

Time machine jazz (CD reviews)

By phum Mon, Jan 31 2011 COMMENTS(0) Jazzblog.ca

Filed under: Larry Goldings, CD reviews, Harry Allen, Ehud Asherie

Is tenor saxophonist Harry Allen the Dr. Who of jazz? You might think so, given the two recent CDs that feature the hornman, who turns 45 this year but revels in an esthetic and sound that was in full bloom decades before he was born. To read what the producers write, it’s as if the hornman is the very sound of nostalgia, transporting listeners to a more mellifluous, pre-bop time. But is that a good thing? Read on…

Modern Life (Posi-Tone)
Ehud Asherie (featuring Harry Allen)

The epigraph penned by Dick Whitman on the inner packaging of Modern Life reads:

It’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels — around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.

The citation is artfully indirect, but I believe it means to give listeners an emotional crutch when it comes to appreciating the music from Ehud Asherie, a pianist in his early 1930s, his featured saxophonist Allen, bassist Joel Forbes and drummer Chuck Riggs. Under Asherie’s leadership, the group plays music that is decidedly “old-fashioned.” My wife, it should be said, offered that adjective, along with a big smile, because she is simply a person with open ears rather than jazz critic of the give-me-innovation-or-give-me-death school.

While my wife could not be bothered to analyse the details, most she was taking into consideration aspects such as Allen’s diffuse, pre-Coltrane sounds on his horn, Asherie’s reverence to swing and bop language (down to the Tatumesque fills and use of diminished chords when a more “modern” pianist would add extra alterations) and the overall, happy, bouncy time feel of the group. Here’s a clip of Asherie and Allen playing I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket, which Irving Berlin wrote in the mid-1930s and Ella Fitzgerald recorded in the late 1950s:

A vigorous swing-style blowing session, Modern Life offers 10 tracks. They include faithful verse-and-all readings of George Gershwin’s He Loves and She Loves (a classy ballad) and Soon (a bright swinger), medium-tempo takes of I’ve Told Every Little Star and No Moon At All (two tunes with swing built in to them), a slow Calypso groove version of Tadd Dameron’s Casbah, and a closing duet on Billy Strayhorn’s A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing. Asherie’ss two originals — the riffy Blues For George and the bluesy tune One For V — fit right in with this focused program.

Throughout, Asherie plays with polish and class. However, it’s Allen, who has been plumbing this style for at least a dozen years more than the pianist, who expresses himself most strongly and personally, I find. His poise and invention on the very fast Trolley Song make his performance a true thing of beauty — old-fashioned or otherwise.

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Lucid Culture’s write up for the new Ehud Asherie CD “Organic” featuring Peter Bernstein….

lucidculture

Ehud Asherie is an interesting guy, a longtime star of the New York jazz underground with a unique and soulful voice on the organ. A lot of jazz players go straight for the funky grooves pioneered by Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff and there’s definitely that feel here but there’s also a welcome fearlessness of the kind of power a B3 organ can deliver. Which is especially interesting since Asherie’s previous albums highlight his feel for samba jazz, a style which is completely the opposite. The group on this latest cd, Organic, has the ubiquitous Peter Bernstein, characteristically terse and incisive on guitar, along with Dmitry Baevsky providing color on alto sax and drummer Phil Stewart having a great time switching between shuffles, undulating Brazilian beats and some playful funk.

They reinvent Tonight, from West Side Story, as a shuffle, Asherie locking into a darkly chordal approach as he will frequently throughout this album; Bernstein’s expansive, exploratory solo and Baevsky’s balmy contributions contrast considerably. They play up the beat on Sonny Rollins’ The Stopper almost to the point where it’s Keystone Kops, choppy terrain for Asherie to sail through with some tricky yet perfectly balanced arpeggios. And a waltz finally, cleverly emerges out of a thicket of syncopation on Asherie’s Walse Pra Jelena, the organ adding an unexpectedly distant carnivalesque tinge echoed in Bernstein’s considerably more anxious second solo.

The most trad early 60s number here is the swinging, midtempo Apostrophe, closer to Made Men than Mad Men with its biting organ solo. Likewise, Jobim’s Favela is punchy, edgy and frankly a lot more interesting than the original, more of a straight-up shuffle. Bernstein grabs the melody and sinks his teeth into it, and Stewart takes it all the way to the depths of Africa with a boomy Yoruban-tinged solo. The rest of the album includes It’s Possible, a warmly lyrical, sneakily brisk original; a slightly smoky, stately and surprisingly intense version of Guy Lombardo’s Coquette; and a swirling, bluesily inspired Fats Waller tribute. A welcome change from a lot of the retro B3 albums coming out lately – and no pesticides either. It’s out now on Posi-Tone.

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Here’s some new reviews of the latest Tarbaby and Ehud Asherie discs taken from the pen of Victor Aaron over at Something Else!…….

www.somethingelsereviews.com

What a stellar year it’s been for Posi-Tone Records. They’ve generated record after record of honest-to-goodness mainstream jazz done with taste, style, with exceptional sidemen and flawless production. After reviewing zero releases prior to 2010, we’ve now given our impressions on a dozen releases, eleven of them 2010 releases. However, Posi-Tone isn’t done yet, and recently there came forth a couple more records from this jazz factory that I just can’t ignore.

These two CD’s revisit some artists who’ve already had albums out this year, but are already back for more. When guys get on a roll, the last thing you want to do is stop ’em. They are keeping my ears and keyboard very busy, but I think I can live with some more delectable jazz to write about…

 

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Some more AAJ coverage for Ehud Asherie’s new CD “Organic” featuring Peter Bernstein Phil Stewart and Dimitri Baevsky….

www.allaboutjazz.com

Track Listing: Tonight; Valse Pra Jelena; The Stopper; Coquette; It’s Possible; Favela; Apostrophe; Blues For Fats.

Personnel: Ehud Asherie: organ; Peter Bernstein: guitar; Dmitry Baevsky: tenor saxophone; Phil Stewart: drums.

Read more reviews of
Organic
Organic is Israeli-born Ehud Asherie’s fourth album as leader on the Posi- Tone label. It’s also his second release of 2010, following the excellent Modern Life, although it was actually recorded two years before that album, back in 2007. It’s another quartet recording of predominantly straight-ahead jazz and shows, once again, the young musician’s affinity with and talent for this musical genre.

As with Modern Life, this album is a pleasing combination of Asherie’s original tunes and classics from writers such as Sonny Rollins and Leonard Bernstein. In contrast to the earlier album, Organic showcases Asherie’s talents on the Hammond B-3 organ rather than the piano and, perhaps because of this change in instrument, Asherie has put together a more consistently upbeat set of tunes. The result is a positive, optimistic recording that really swings.

Asherie’s approach to Bernstein’s “Tonight” is decidedly high-energy—this is the sound of a bunch of guys getting ready for a night on the town, not a lonely and lovelorn New Yorker. The tune gives all the members of the quartet the chance to open up with Asherie, guitarist Peter Bernstein, saxophonist Dmitry Baevsky and drummer Phil Stewart all delivering short but effective solos. The band also produces a punchy version of Rollins’ “The Stopper,” with Baevsky’s saxophone playing taking a central role and Stewart adding an inventive drum solo, and a gently grooving take on Johnny Green and Gus Kahn’s “Coquette,” on which Asherie adds a smoothly-played organ solo.

Asherie’s own compositions include “Valse Pra Jelena,” probably the album’s loveliest tune thanks, in particular, to Bernstein’s rich single-note playing; the slinky hard bop of “Apostrophe”; and the funky, insistent organ/guitar/drums outing, “It’s Possible.” Asherie’s compositions have a nostalgic quality to them, in keeping with his obvious love for some of the classic styles of jazz, which gives them an appealing familiarity.

Organic may not have the emotional range or dynamics of Modern Life but its positive and upbeat take on the music is accessible and immediate— this is an easy album to enjoy, played by a likable and talented quartet.

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Jeff Krow of Audiophile Audition weighs in on Ehud Asherie “Organic”….

audaud.com

Ehud Asherie – Organic – Posi-Tone Records PR 8071, 43:11 ***½:

(Ehud Asherie, Hammond B-3 organ; Peter Bernstein, guitar; Dmitry Baevsky, alto sax; Phil Stewart, drums)

There has been a pleasant trend for lovers of the Hammond B-3 organ. It is the resurgence in the popularity of this groove machine. Pianists are turning to the Hammond B-3 to open up their repertoire to explore the funky side of town. The trend seemed to start at around the time that Mike LeDonne began his weekly sessions at New York City clubs, primarily Smoke.

For Israeli pianist Ehud Asherie, who records for Posi-Tone, he chose his fourth recording for the label to make a Hammond B-3 session. Who better than Peter Bernstein (in my opinion the first choice for guitar on a Hammond date) to add to the mix to set yourself in the right direction. Also adding an alto sax to the quartet is a smart move as the sax broadens the spice quotient and the young Russian saxophonist Dmitry Baevsky, who has recorded for Sharp 9, is an up and comer, who plays well beyond his years.

Ehud has chosen of mix of standards by Leonard Bernstein, Sonny Rollins, and Jobim, as well as four originals to explore. “Tonight”, among the most recognizable Bernstein compositions gets the Hammond treatment and Ehud has a light touch here unlike you’ll find with a more percussive reading of a Dr. Lonnie Smith. Bernstein’s guitar lines are as classy, concise, and swinging as ever. Peter brings his “A” game always. Dmitry swings easily fitting in with Ehud and Peter.

“Valse Pra Jelena” features Peter Bernstein in a lead role and as usual his clean lines are exemplary. “The Stopper” from Sonny Rollins shows Dmitry’s bop chops and Ehud ups the tempo with some lightning fast runs to keep pace. Stewart has a featured solo where he uses his entire drum kit, with the cymbals highlighted. Gus Kahn and Johnny Green’s “Coquette” has a long history going back to the 1940s and has been covered by artists ranging from Django to Armstrong and Bix, and Ehud and company give it a sweet reading relatively straight ahead so its melody is completely recognizable. It’s quite lovely.

Ehud’s “It’s Possible” shows he knows the Hammond’s strengths in setting a funky vibe for the guitar and drums to embellish. Jobim’s “Favela” will get your head into a nod while your toes dance. “Apostrophe” provides an opportunity for Baevsky and Asherie to play off each other like you’ll find in the best sax/ Hammond moments. “Blues for Fats” closes out Organic and I’m betting it’s written to honor Fats Waller as the Hammond’s tone changes to a 30s to 40s organ without the vibrato of the 50s thru 70s for which this groove machine is better known.

Add Ehud Asherie to the list of Hammond B-3 players that B-3 aficionados can trust to keep faith with prior Hammond legends. You will not be disappointed.

TrackList: Tonight, Valse Pra Jelena, The Stopper, Coquette, It’s Possible, Favela, Apostrophe, Blues for Fats