Articles by Jack Kenny
John Scofield Dave Holland: Memories Of Home
by Jack Kenny
This album is fundamentally about rapport, deep listening, and a shared musical history that traces back to Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and the quartet with Joe Lovano and Al Foster. John Scofield's distinctive guitar style seamlessly integrates post-bop, fusion, funk, and roots-based influences. His dry, idiosyncratic tone and subtle inflections have helped redefine modern jazz guitar, bridging generations through his work with Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Gary Burton, Bill Frisell, and Joe Lovano. Dave Holland, shaped ...
Continue ReadingNoah Preminger: Dark Days
by Jack Kenny
Noah Preminger possesses one of the most beautiful tones in jazz, and he knows it. He is not inclined to tarnish that sound--nor should he. It is the product of years of rigorous work. His challenge, rather, lies in his relative youth, in jazz terms. Admired already, Preminger also understands that his best years likely lie ahead. His well-regarded album Ballads (Chill Tone 2025) confirms his lyric gifts, yet it also raises the question: What next? Think of Coltrane--could one ...
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 ...
Continue ReadingArt Blakey And His Jazz Messengers: Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers Strasbourg 82
by Jack Kenny
This album captures a special concert and a pivotal moment in the history of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. It documents the re--formation of the band following the departure of trumpet player Wynton Marsalisand saxophonist Branford Marsalis. The new recruits--trumpeter Terence Blanchard and alto saxophonist Donald Harrison--were eager to prove their abilities, injecting the band with palpable energy. As was his custom, Blakey, the veteran bandleader, played with the fire and intensity of a musician just starting out. The ...
Continue ReadingJack Kenny's Best Jazz Albums Of 2025
by Jack Kenny
A year is an arbitrary time. The list is chronological by how they came to me. The albums that still stand out are Bone Bells (Pyroclastic Records) by Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson and the sheer professional expertise of Jed Levy Faces and Places (Self Produced). Both albums, in their different ways, exude creativity and joy. The vintage albums from Gerry Mulligan, Paul Bley and Art Pepper are unalloyed pleasure. The special releases from Zev Feldman are an ...
Continue ReadingTed Brown Quartet: Just You Just Me
by Jack Kenny
Ted Brown's 2013 album, recorded at various locations in New York and New Jersey, is steeped in the traditions of both Lester Young and Lennie Tristano, but what emerges is distinctly his own. Born in 1927, Brown channels the inspirations of these jazz giants, yet asserts his own individuality in every phrase. The ghostly presences of Young and Tristano haunt the grooves, but Brown's interpretive voice remains unmistakable. Tristano's concept of improvisation--marked by avoidance of standard licks and ...
Continue ReadingRahsaan Roland Kirk: Seek & Listen: Live At The Penthouse
by Jack Kenny
Few figures in jazz history have embodied the word original quite like Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Sightless from infancy, yet bursting with boundless vision, he turned live performance into theatre, ritual and revelation. On stage, he appeared as a commanding silhouette festooned with flutes, whistles, tenor saxophone, clarinet, bells, harmonica and his self-fashioned instruments--the manzello and stritch. Before a note was played, the spectacle alone promised something extraordinary. When the music began, it revealed what Kirk himself called Black Classical Music: ...
Continue ReadingCharles Lloyd: Figure In Blue
by Jack Kenny
Jazz listeners with long memories will remember that Charles Lloyd was not always as revered as he is today. In the 1960s, his association with the “Summer of Love" and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury scene led some to question his seriousness, seeing him as flirting with commercialism. Six decades on, that perception has aged away. Lloyd's work in 2025 is almost comparable to Beethoven's late quartets--music of depth, reflection, and spiritual weight. He has passed beyond being a national treasure; he ...
Continue ReadingMcCoy Tyner Quartet: New York Reunion
by Jack Kenny
McCoy Tyner's New York Reunion is a fine example of late-period recording, presenting the jazz masters in a quartet setting that draws deeply on tradition while brimming with contemporary energy. Originally released in 1991 on Chesky Records, the album features Tyner at the piano alongside three equally distinguished collaborators: Joe Henderson (tenor saxophone), Ron Carter (bass) and Al Foster (drums). The title itself hints at a reconvening of New York's post-bop elite, each artist bringing decades of innovation to the ...
Continue ReadingPharoah Sanders: Love Is Here The Complete Paris 1975 ORTF Recordings
by Jack Kenny
The saxophonist Pharoah Sanders was often described as an enigma of jazz, once famously characterized as “a mad wind screeching through the root-cellars of Hell." That “mad wind" is absent on Love Is Here: The Complete Paris 1975 ORTF Recordings, but the enigma remains. This pivotal album captures Sanders stretching out, away from his Impulse! Records contract, exploring a sound that moves beyond late-stage John Coltrane and places a greater emphasis on tone, melody, and lyrical expression. Recorded ...
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