Carmen Sandim

By the time Brazil native Carmen Sandim was seventeen, she had already won national competitions in both Brazilian jazz and classical piano. After graduating from the Berklee College of Music, she went on to win several awards for the compositional work she did for television and radio. So it's no surprise that Sandim, now based in Boulder and teaching music, knows a thing or two about crafting a great song. Brand New, which was recorded live at Dazzle (where she'll celebrate the CD's release on Sunday, February 20), showcases ten outstanding works — some sprawling, others intricate — that draw primarily from jazz but also incorporate influences from Western classical and Brazil. Parts of the opening track, "Sampa," one of the album's many highlights, hint at later-era Pat Metheny Group. These songs also work as vehicles for some fine soloing from trumpeter Ron Miles, guitarist Matt Fuller and saxophonist Danny Meyer. - westword

Last night Dazzle hosted the CD release party for Brand New by the Carmen Sandim Sextet. Brand New itself is a live recording of a Dazzle performance from the previous year. The reassembled group played highlights from the CD, showcasing its many textures and moods, from the rainy-day, “Zoloft Bounce,” to the playful, “Feliz,” the plaintive, “Bossa,” and the mathematically complex title track, “Brand New.” Carmen’s compositional gifts and classical background could easily lead to music that is overly structural and detached, but the opposite always wins out. Songs like, “Sampa,” which ended the first set, are not debates between irreconcilables, but instead manage to elicit the affinities and friendships between the classical, jazz, and Brazilian traditions. The group’s instrumentation was the perfect platform for Carmen’s ideas, Matt Fuller’s guitar finding a natural partner with her intricate piano lines, the trumpet work of the great Ron Miles creating just the right amount of tension against Danny Meyer’s tenor sax, with Jean-Luc Davis on bass and Josh Moore on drums grounding the conversation. The outcome is a kind of addiction—melodies and progressions cycling through with enough density to seep down into the crevices of the brain’s landscape where pleasure is found. A magical night. - notesandsundries