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John Bailey: Time Bandits
by Jack Bowers
After working and recording for decades with some of the jazz world's best and brightest talents, trumpeter John Bailey released his first album as leader of his own group in 2018, the second in 2020 and, in 2023, his third, Time Bandits, which shares a name but nothing more with Terry Gilliam's 1981 film fantasy. Bailey leads an all-star quartet on this one, firmly anchored by drummer Victor Lewis (the timekeeper on all of Bailey's albums) and ...
read moreThe Marauding John Bailey
by David Bixler
After more that 30 years as an omnipresent side man on the NYC scene, trumpeter John Bailey decided it was time to step out as a leader so in 2018 he recorded his first record, In Real Time. This was followed in 2020 with Can You Imagine, and now, in 2023, he has released Time Bandits with George Cables, Scott Colley, and Victor Lewis. In this episode of LINER NOTES John talks about his music and the patient path that ...
read moreTed Kooshian: Hubub!
by Edward Blanco
New York pianist and keyboardist Ted Kooshian continues his love affair with classic TV, cartoon themes and the pop scene, on Hubub!, offering a selection of striking originals influenced by his “enthusiastic love for pop culture," which includes tributes to actors Steve McQueen and William Shatner of Star Trek fame. The album's sole standard is Leonard Bernstein's classic “Somewhere" from the West Side Story play, distinguishing this version from so many others with an atypically jaunty arrangement from the pianist. ...
read moreTed Kooshian: Hubub!
by Jack Bowers
There are two ways of looking at Hubub!, pianist Ted Kooshian's fifth album as leader. The first is, “nothing new here"; and the second, “everything is new here." On the one hand, Kooshian's able quintet hews closely to the post-bop canon which has given rise to its fabric; on the other, they do so within the framework of Kooshian's bright and engaging melodies, none of which seems commonplace or shopworn. Kooshian wrote nine of the album's eleven ...
read moreArturo O'Farrill: Four Questions
by Jerome Wilson
Surprisingly this set marks the first time Arturo O'Farrill has recorded a set of solely his own compositions. It was worth the wait because this music, played by his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, really demonstrates the cinematic sweep and variety of his writing. The set is constructed around two topical extended works. The first, “Four Questions," is based on four questions about the struggle for human rights and personal dignity first posed by African-American author W.E.B. DuBois in ...
read moreArturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Four Questions
by Jack Bowers
The Four Questions addressed by composer / pianist Arturo O'Farrill's Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra on its latest album were first posed in 1903 by W.E.B. DuBois in his book The Souls of Black Folk and are answered herein by the esteemed educator / historian / social activist Dr. Cornel West. For the record, the questions are “what does integrity do in the face of adversity and oppression, what does honesty do in the face of lies and deception, what does ...
read moreJohn Bailey: Can You Imagine?
by Jack Bowers
Letting his imagination roam free, trumpeter John Bailey envisions a world in which one of his musical touchstones, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, is president of the United States--one in which Gillespie's cabinet includes Duke Ellington (secretary of state), Louis Armstrong (secretary of agriculture) and Miles Davis (CIA director). The fact is, Gillespie did “run" for president in 1964, a crusade that was far more satirical than serious. Nevertheless, as was his fashion, Gillespie milked his “candidacy" for all it was worth, ...
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