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Richie Beirach: Leaving
by Chris May
On Leaving, recorded in France in 2022, Richie Beirach revisits thirteen evergreen standards, seven of them grouped together in two medleys, and two of his own compositions ("Leaving," “Sunday Song") written in the 1970s. The album is Beirach's first live solo recording since 1981. All of the material is more than familiar to Beirach and will be equally well known to seasoned jazz fans. In his liner note, Beirach says that this was intentional. He wanted to ...
read moreEmpathy
by Ian Patterson
In a fifty-year, on-off musical relationship that began with a jam session in 1967 and that deepened in New York's loft scene of the early '70s, Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach have made some remarkable music together. Their first recorded collaboration was on Liebman's First Visit (Philips, 1973). Liebman returned the compliment on Beirach's Forgotten Fantasies (Horizon, 1976)—the first of half a dozen duo albums the pair would make in the following four decades. Intermittently since 1981, Quest, ...
read moreJim Beard / Jon Herington: Chunks And Chairknobs
by Mike Jacobs
The seeds for Chunks and Chairknobs were planted for guitarist Jon Herington and pianist Jim Beard a few years prior to its recording, while they were on a break from their touring duties with Steely Dan. The two took the opportunity to do something they had never done over the course of their 40 plus-year friendship—work up a duo set and mount a short tour together. The lion's share of those resulting arrangements— tackling a mix of Beard originals, Herington ...
read moreWoody Shaw: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Vol. 1: Hamburg 1979
by Chris May
Woody Shaw was born a decade or so after quintessential hard-bop trumpeters Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd and Freddie Hubbard, Shaw's professed role model. He came to the party late but he came bearing gifts—a strong technique, an ability to play inside and outside with equal conviction, and a lot of soul. These qualities were to the fore on two sideman albums on which Shaw's reputation was established, Eric Dolphy's Iron Man (Douglas, 1963), Shaw's recorded debut, and Larry Young's Unity ...
read moreLookout Farm: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1975
by Chris May
Fasten your seat belt, please. Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach's club date with Lookout Farm barely lets up during an hour of ferocious jazz going on jazz-rock. It's in roughly the same bag as Miles Davis' post-Bitches Brew (CBS, 1970) electric albums, some of which had Liebman in the lineup. The tape lay in the vaults of German radio station NDR, for whom it was recorded for broadcast in 1975, until its rediscovery by Jazzline Records. It forms part of ...
read moreDave Liebman & Richie Beirach: Eternal Voices
by Roger Farbey
Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach have known each other for half a century and this double album is a celebration of their friendship. They've recorded together during this period in varying configurations. There was Liebman's short-lived but highly praised jazz rock group Lookout Farm formed in 1974 and from the 1980s there was Quest. But arguably it's their duet albums that have resulted in the most intriguing and musically timeless statements. There have been quite a few, too, beginning with ...
read moreRandy Brecker: Rocks
by Chris M. Slawecki
The easiest answer isn't always the best answer, but sometimes it is. So it's both easy and proper to point out that trumpet and flugelhorn master, composer, and bandleader Randy Brecker was kind enough to simultaneously review his release with the NDR Bigband, the Hamburg Radio Jazz Orchestra, when he titled it Rocks. Assembled for the recording studio after Brecker finished two acclaimed tours of Europe with the NDR Bigband, Rocks recapitulates tunes that Brecker has written through ...
read moreLouis Hayes / Junior Cook Quintet: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1976
by Chris May
In 1976, when At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall was recorded, hard bop was viewed as nostalgia-based heritage music by the young lions of American jazz. But for drummer Louis Hayes, tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, trumpeter Woody Shaw, pianist Ronnie Matthews, and bassist Stafford James--whose paths had crossed and recrossed in bands led by Horace Silver, Art Blakey, and Julian “Cannonball" Adderley--hard bop was still the staff of life. By turns raw and blazing, flowing and balladic, At ...
read moreTimeless All Stars: At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall: Hamburg 1982
by Chris May
They were timeless and they were all stars. Bobby Hutcherson, Harold Land, Curtis Fuller, Cedar Walton, Buster Williams and Billy Higgins got together in the early 1980s to play post-hard-bop jazz in the studio and on the US and European performance circuits. The band recorded three fine albums between 1982 and 1986. At Onkel Po's Carnegie Hall makes that four. Recorded live at the famously louche Hamburg club, it was taped for broadcast by German radio station NDR. The release ...
read moreRandy Brecker with the NDR Big Band - The Hamburg Jazz Orchestra: Rocks
by Roger Farbey
Randy Brecker has been at the forefront of jazz since the late 1960s. His debut album as leader way back in 1969 was Score (Solid State). In addition to numerous albums under his own name he's also recorded with George Benson, Duke Pearson, Dreams and Larry Coryell's Eleventh House, to name just a few. But perhaps he is best known for the albums he produced with his younger brother, the late Michael Brecker as The Brecker Brothers. Lest people forget ...
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