(Post-Bop, Guitar Jazz) [WEB] Rale Micic - Night Music (with Danny Grissett, Corcoran Holt, Johnathan Blake) - 2016, FLAC (tracks), lossless

http://www.ralemicic.com/ralewp/?page_id=4149
Rale Micic is one of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to emerge from Serbia. Audiences throughout the world have been captivated by Micic’s mesmerizing music, exploring interaction between his Serbian musical roots and his extensive knowledge of jazz.
With three albums‘released on CTA Records, Rale Micic created cult-like following among music fans with his mix of jazz and haunting melodies from the Balkans. On his second release entitled Serbia, Micic establishes himself as one of the most inventive voices on the music scene today, featuring renowned Grammy-nominated trumpet player Tom Harrell, and was called “mellow, tight and tasteful” by Downbeat. His trio album, symbolically titled “3”, is an entrancing trio record described as “ a groove heavy record… pure listening pleasure”.
On his new album entitled Night Music (Whaling City Sound) , Rale looks closer to home for his inspiration. It features all new music, a modern day re-imaging of Bela Bartok’s idea of night music and what it would sound like in the city today.
Rale Micic has been featured in numerous publications including Downbeat, JazzTimes, LA Times, San Diego Tribune, Boston Globe, etc. He has performed at prominent jazz clubs and music festivals in US and Europe including Village Vanguard, Catalina Jazz Club, Blues Alley,, Scullers Jazz Club, Dizzy’s, Smalls, San Jose Jazz Festival, Hartford International Jazz Festival, etc.
As a sideman, Micic has worked with the jazz artists such as Tom Harrell, Don Friedman, Eric Alexander, Jason and Delfayo Marsalis, etc. He is a member of Tom Harrell Chamber Ensemble and is featured on critically acclaimed release First Impression (2015 High Note). Rale Micic plays Sadowsky guitars and D’Addario strings.

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/night-music-rale-micic-whaling-city-sound-review-by-jack-bowers.php
On Night Music, his fourth album as leader of his own group, Rale Micic (pronounced Rah-lay Mee-cheech), a Serbian-born guitarist who has lived and gigged in New York City for more than fifteen years, pays tribute to the music of the Hungarian classical composer Bela Bartok who, as it turns out, spent his last years living in the same Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, in upper Manhattan, where Micic has made his home for the past dozen years. Having learned of Bartok from his classical music-loving grandfather and studied the composer's string quartets in college, the coincidental fact that Bartok had once lived about two blocks from Micic's home in Riverdale was the tipping point that provided the impetus for this earnest homage.
Micic wrote eight of the album's eleven selections, Bartok the others ("Melody in a Mist" and acoustic and electric versions of his "Nocturne"). Its classical veneer, implicit and understated, lends an aura of sublimity to what is essentially a tasteful jazz recording by Micic and his dexterous teammates (pianist Danny Grissett, bassist Corcoran Holt, drummer Johnathan Blake) whose over-arching theme is night in all its essence as filtered through the senses of Micic and Bartok and paraphrased by the quartet. While Micic plays a key role, he shares much of the melodic and improvisational component with Grissett who is more than up to the task. The rhythm is in capable hands as well, with Holt and Blake taking firm command on the serpentine opener, "Hotel Insomnia," laying down a strong and insistent beat that counterbalances Micic's mellow guitar and Grissett's even-tempered Fender Rhodes.
"Jano," Micic's restatement of a traditional Serbian folk song, underscores the more temperate nature of the night, as does Bartok's "Melody in a Mist," which set the stage for the more vigorous, bop-centered "Late Call" and the enchanting ballad "Blue." Micic and Grissett are alone together on the brief "Nocturnes," the first acoustic, the second electric (a tantalizing contrast), which bookend the fast-paced title selection. "Afterparty," another easygoing essay, showcases Grissett's wah-wah pedal on the Fender Rhodes along with more stalwart rhythmic support from Holt and Blake, and the quartet wraps the session with the charming "Sunrise" and seductive waltz-time treatment of Micic's "Color of the Sun."
At its core, this is stylish, well-designed chamber jazz with an emphasis on sharp and perceptive interplay. The melodies are engaging, the rhythms well-matched, the solos sharp and burnished. The presumption here is that Bartok would have been delighted, and so might you.
http://www.whalingcitysound.com/wcs086.htm
Last we heard from tasty Serbian-born guitar player Rale Micic (pronounced Rah-lay Mee-cheech) he had recorded the sweet trio disc “3.” The work vaulted him to prominence, and he enjoyed enthusiastic followers at prestigious gigs. On his fourth disc as bandleader, Rale looks closer to home for his inspiration. The sublime new Night Music is a re-imagining of the work of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. Helped in his vision mission by Jonathan Blake and his adrenalized drum ‘n’ bass pulse, Corcoran Holt’s heavy groove on upright bass, and Danny Grissett’s Fender Rhodes, all of which provide an evocative and colorful bed for Micic’s flowing single note lines and double-time flurries. While Bartok fused Hungarian folk music with more a tradition-al classical essence to create work of incredible national pride, Micic attempts to do something similar by creating a blend of ethnic tinged playing and more conventional jazz. Bartok lived his last few years in New York City, near Micic’s home in Riverdale, where he transcribed Serbian folk music at Columbia University. Motivated by the inspiration and closeness he felt to the spirit of Bartok, Micic created Night Music, a heartfelt tribute of extraordinary beauty, and an immense accomplishment from an imposing talent.

Rale Micic: guitar;
Danny Grissett: piano;
Corcoran Holt: bass;
Johnathan Blake: drums.