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Kelvin Sholar Trio: Rites of Fire
by Franz A. Matzner
A syncretic symphony, Kelvin Sholar's Rites of Fire is the product of 15 years of meditation on the history and esoteric mechanisms of musical expression. The richly satisfying album is unbounded by anything other than Sholar's relentless commitment to self-discovery. Sholar's own resurrection from clinical death to artistic and spiritual rebirth is embedded in the core ...
Jack DeJohnette: Bill Evans Legacy
by Franz A. Matzner
Modern Drummer Hall of Fame inductee, drummer and pianist Jack DeJohnette has shaped jazz drumming for decades. A compatriot of illustrious players like Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, John Scofield, and many more, DeJohnette helped shape a new conception of what the drums could bring to ensembles, including adding color, detail, and fluid interplay. His contributions to ...
Bill Evans: Bill Evans Live at Ronnie Scott's
by Franz A. Matzner
Bill Evans: Live At Ronnie Scott's brings to mind the phrase on the shoulders of giants." Evans's stature in jazz history is unassailable, his influence having touched much of the music's subsequent trajectories, while also establishing a new, discernable branch of the jazz tree traceable to the present-day. A two-disc package, Bill Evans: Live at Ronnie ...
Mary Halvorson: Artlessly Falling
by Franz A. Matzner
Released by Mary Halvorson's Code Girl, Artlessly Falling presents eight new compositions, each of which is structured around a specific poetic form with accompanying lyrics/poems by Halvorson herself. The forms represent a significant diversity of cultural origins and eras, including Japanese Tanka, 12th century Sestina, French Villanelle, and Malay Pantoum. With each of the ...
Junk Magic: Compass Confusion
by Franz A. Matzner
Density. Shifting ground. Textural discord. Sharpness like glass. Resonant emptiness. Explorative improvisation, electronica sound spaces and electric beats. Released by the Craig Taborn project Junk Magic, Compass Confusion moves the fusion of live performance with electronica to the next level, making the division between the two often difficult to discern. The album incorporates a ...
Lafayette Gilchrist: Now
by Franz A. Matzner
Pianist and composer Lafayette Gilchrist has made clear that, in part, Now addresses the racial and political conflicts erupting across America in 2020. The music is suitably intense and tumultuous. The album demands change while also reminding us that the violence and divisions splintering the country are not new. The repression and oppression embedded ...
Jacek Kochan & musiConspiracy: Occupational Hazard
by Franz A. Matzner
Polish-born and current Canadian Jacek Kochan's 22nd release as a leader, Occupational Hazard, exists at the crossroads of straight ahead and electric jazz. A drummer, composer and arranger, Kochan has played with a variety of musicians over the course of his long career. On Occupational Hazard he leverages this broad experience to bring together ...
Adam Rudolph: Ragmala and Prototypical Music
by Franz A. Matzner
Adam Rudolph has been seeking to push the boundaries of musical creativity for decades, developing a unique concept of composition, ensemble interaction, and conducting. As many writers have commented, his music resists critical commentary due to its prototypical nature. Said another way, Rudolph's music doesn't sound like anything else, and its antecedents are so varied that ...
Chelsea McBride's Socialist Night School: Aftermath
by Franz A. Matzner
Carve out an hour to listen to Socialist Night School's Aftermath because the combination of big-band music and progressive, challenging lyrics demands it. There's no way to let either simply wash over the ears. The music is too blunt, the lyrics too developed and too integral to absorb passively. The follow up to the ...
Bill Frisell: Harmony
by Franz A. Matzner
Renowned guitarist Bill Frisell's Blue Note Records debut Harmony is a pleasant album. This does not imply lack of innovation, the saccharine sound or the absence of bite and sorrow. These hues of bite and sorrow actually dominate the fourteen selections, which in patented Frisell manner run the gamut from traditional Americana to Elvis Costello to ...