When it comes to appraising contemporary big bands, Canada's Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra is on equal footing with the best of them. For its seventh album, Tidal Currents, the WJO has engaged two of that country's leading jazz composers, Jill Townsend and Christine Jensen, to present in musical terms impressions of places that have a special meaning ...

Album

Migrations

By Allison Au

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2023
Track listing: Choice; Prayer; The ISM; Progress; Aves Raras; Racing Across The Land; For Russel and Rowena Jelliffe; Them (intro); Them; Keep A Few Embers From The Fire; Migration; Pecola; I Dream A World.

Song of the Day

Racing Across the Land

November 6, 2023

Album: Migrations
By Allison Au
Label: Self Produced
Released: 2023
Duration: 05:03

Article: Album Review

Allison Au: Migrations

Read "Migrations" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 24, 2023

Canadian saxophonist Allison Au says she was drawn to the simplicity of a jazz quartet “as a vehicle for realizing the visions of my original compositions." Charlie Parker must have felt the same way; Art Pepper, too. And John Coltrane. Au stuck to this format for her Wander Wonder (Self Produced, 2018) and 2017's self-produced Forest ...

Article: Album Review

Fraser MacPherson: From The Pen Of...

Read "From The Pen Of..." reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 11, 2022

The late tenor saxophonist Fraser MacPherson was well-known in western Canada and elsewhere for his brilliance—but as player, not a writer. In fact, according to MacPherson's son Guy, who wrote the excellent liner notes to From the Pen of..., his father wrote barely a dozen or so original compositions, almost all of which are included on ...

Album

Stranger Than Fiction

By Jon Gordon

Label: ArtistShare
Released: 2021
Track listing: Pointillism; Havens; Stranger Than Fiction; Dance; Sunyasin; Counterpoint; Bella; Modality; Steps; Waking Dream.

Article: Album Review

Jon Gordon: Stranger Than Fiction

Read "Stranger Than Fiction" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
October 9, 2021

Saxophonist Jon Gordon's superb 13th release as a leader, Stranger Than Fiction, consists of 10 cinematic and captivating originals. Gordon leads a large ensemble of mostly Canadian musicians through his vibrantly textured compositions. The focus is more on dynamic interplay of different band members and orchestral segments than on individual expressions. There are, however, brilliantly virtuosic ...