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Jack Bowers' Best Jazz Albums Of 2025
by Jack Bowers
2025: Another year which proves that jazz is not only alive and well but flourishing in its own little corner of the musical world. The number of splendid new recordings by groups large and small was as plentiful as ever, and even better, spanned the globe from the U.S, to Europe, Asia to Latin America, and Africa to Australia. It was a privilege to hear and review fresh performances of contemporary jazz from big bands old and new including Pete ...
Continue ReadingC. Andrew Hovan's Best Jazz Albums of 2025
by C. Andrew Hovan
On many levels, 2025 proved to be a challenging year marked by considerable strife. Fortunately, as Art Blakey once observed, “Music washes away the dust of everyday life." And yet, given the current state of affairs, the moment might be more accurately captured by a line from The Police: “When the world is falling down, you make the best of what's still around." Over the past decade, the trajectory of jazz has often been bent toward rule-breaking and linguistic expansion, ...
Continue ReadingRoy Powell - Lorenzo Feliciati - Lucrezio de Seta: Aria
by Glenn Astarita
Roy Powell has been the quiet man in the engine room for years. British by birth and Norwegian by choice, he once spent serious time as Anthony Braxton's pianist on those wild European tours where the music looked like geometry homework, and the applause was optional. He later slipped into the electric Norwegian wave, trading greasy Fender Rhodes licks with Bugge Wesseltoft and Nils Petter Molvær when Oslo was busy inventing what magazines called nu-jazz. Powell can venture as far ...
Continue ReadingCharles Lloyd and Steve Tibbetts: Inner Directed and Independent
by Doug Collette
Perhaps not surprisingly, independent thinkers are invariably self-motivated and both those virtues apply to saxophonist Charles Lloyd and guitarist Steve Tibbetts. But while the former has roamed far and wide in a series of musical adventures involving the disparate likes of Keith Jarrett and the Beach Boys, the latter has chosen to go deep rather than broad in working with percussionist Marc Anderson for upwards of fifty years. In a similar reflection of their respective approaches, Tibbetts has mostly recorded ...
Continue ReadingMulo Francel & Rami Attallah Group: Global Players
by Ian Patterson
For most professional jazz musicians the jazz life is a labor of love--endless gigs over countless miles, early morning starts and early morning finishes. It is not all glamour, and the bills have to be paid, after all. Still, the lure of the road persists, and in this age of globalization the average jazz musician can travel as never before. Pianist Ramih Attallah and saxophonist Mulo Francel fit the bill. Attallah studied jazz and classical piano in Cairo ...
Continue ReadingWanees Zarour: Silwan
by Jack Bowers
There are times when not knowing what to expect can be helpful. Wanees Zarour, a Palestinian American artist who now calls Chicago home, plays the buzuq and oud, stringed instruments from the Middle East, and couples them on Silwan with his skills as a composer to produce melodic and colorful images of his homeland interspersed with contemporary jazz. As Zarour observes on the inner jacket, “This album is about places, built with stones older than the stories written to erase ...
Continue ReadingNew releases honoring Kenny Wheeler + Tomeka Reid, Shawn Lovato with Ingrid Laubrock and music from the Charles Tyler Ensemble Resurfaces
by Hobart Taylor
Dave Holland and Norma Winstone, Etienne Charles and Emma Rawicz, celebrate Kenny Wheeler on two new releases. New music from Jane Ira Bloom, Zachary Wilder and Kris Davis with the Lutoslawski String Quartet. Playlist Host Speaks 00:00 Yelena Eckemoff “Ruins of Alvsborg" from Ruins of Alvsborg (L&H) 00:16 Kenny Wheeler Legacy /Etienne Charles/Emma Rawicz “Some Doors are Better Open" from Some Days Are Better: The Lost Scores (Greenleaf) 7:48 Emma Rawicz “Anima Rising" from Inkyra (ACT Music) 11:43 ...
Continue ReadingAmirtha Kidambi, KNOBIL, Mattias Risbergs, Maria Pia de Vito & Henri Texier
by Ludovico Granvassu
Powerful albums documenting live performances of ambitious creativity, and artists that turned their interest in different, often faraway cultures are at the heart of this compelling playlist.Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Maria Pia de Vito “Samba e ammore" Buarqueana (Parco della Musica) 0:16 Host talks 6:22 Henri Texier “Sarajevo Blues" Healing Songs (Label Bleu) 7:45 Host talks 17:30 KNOBIL “Comete" Knobilive in Cully Jazz (u n i ...
Continue ReadingFrom The Heart To The Hips To The Head
by Robert J. Lewis
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. --Friedrich Nietzsche Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. --Frank Zappa The six decades spanning 1920 to 1980 describe more than just a chronological segment in the history of music; they represent a tectonic shift in the Western cultural psyche, mirroring the migration of music's epicenter from Europe to America. The period was one of ...
Continue ReadingSal Mosca: For Lennie Tristano
by Jack Kenny
Sal Mosca was absorbed by the ideas of Lenne Tristano. The life force that is in the music of Tristano is not waning. The ascetic ideas and the edgy magnificence of the music continue to enthrall without press agents, advertising, PR consultants: just musicians who continue to be captivated by the purity of the music. Don Messina produced this Sal Mosca album together with Kathy Mosca. Messina completed a seven-year project to transfer all of Mosca's personal recordings to ...
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