Articles by Pierre Giroux
Album Review
Benny Green: Renovation
by Pierre Giroux
There are pianists who play solo because they have something to prove, and then there are pianists like Benny Green, who have nothing to prove and regard the absence of a rhythm section as an invitation. On Renovation, his first live solo recording, Green seems to be enjoying himself. Most of these 13 performances were recorded before an audience at Dizzy's Club in New York City and have the immediacy of an artist thinking out loud, taking a musical idea ...
Continue ReadingWDR Big Band with Sean Jones: Jagged Edges Elegant Lines
by Pierre Giroux
The release Jagged Edges Elegant Lines: The Music of Ayn Inserto is hardly decorative. This live recording by the WDR Big Band, featuring trumpeter Sean Jones, presents an evening of Inserto's compositions that seem determined to keep two things going at once. First, the music can be angular, interrupted, and rhythmically unpredictable; second, it always has an underlying sense of direction. What initially sounds fragmented invariably becomes part of a grander design. That tension is what gives Inserto's music its ...
Continue ReadingJalen Baker: RePaved
by Pierre Giroux
Occasionally, an album comes along that shakes up your thinking about what jazz can do. Jalen Baker's RePaved might be that album. On the surface, it is an eight- part suite about Houston's historic Black neighbourhoods, particularly the 3rd Ward, where Baker's family has deep roots spanning four generations. But on closer listening, it becomes more personal. Baker is not simply documenting places disappearing under the pressure of gentrification; he is keeping their memory alive through music. Baker ...
Continue ReadingOliver-Smith Incomparables: Stomp Your Stuff
by Pierre Giroux
Many bands play early jazz these days, but few make it sound as if the ink is still wet on the page. The Oliver-Smith Incomparables accomplish exactly that on Stomp Your Stuff, a recording that salutes the musical language of Jelly Roll Morton without ever treating it as a historical artifact. Pianist Andrew Oliver and drummer Hal Smith lead an exceptional ensemble featuring Colin Hancock on cornet, Andy Schumm on clarinet-cornet, T.J. Müller on trombone-cornet-vocal, Jacob Alspach on guitar-banjo, and ...
Continue ReadingSullivan Fortner: Leave That In There
by Pierre Giroux
Sullivan Fortner has never been an artist short on ideas. But Leave That In There feels different. It is the sound of a musician who has distilled everything he has absorbed from his deep well of Gulf South upbringing, from the piano giants and from spirituals and street parades, into his own language. It is easily his most personal record to date, a musical scrapbook of memories, ancestry, humour, grief, and resilience. The title draws on Spike Lee's ...
Continue ReadingMike DiRubbo: Way Out Northwest
by Pierre Giroux
Some recordings try to overwhelm the listener with grand statements. With Way Out Northwest, alto saxophonist Mike DiRubbo is not trying to reinvent modern jazz but to remind us how rewarding it can be when four musicians know one another, allowing the music to develop through relationships built over time. Pianist Tilden Webb, bassist Jodi Proznick and drummer Jesse Cahill have shared enough club dates with DiRubbo to know each other's preferences. The track list of six original compositions, alongside pieces ...
Continue ReadingThe Joshua Breakstone Quartet: Wonderful!
by Pierre Giroux
Joshua Breakstone's Wonderful! arrives on CD nearly four decades after its original release. It is a reminder that truly good jazz never worries about expiration dates. Although the original recording came early in his career, Breakstone hardly sounds like a guitarist searching for his voice. The ideas are already in place. Thoughtful, swinging, and melodic, the music is delivered with the quiet confidence of someone who understands that understatement can be as compelling as fireworks. The company Breakstone ...
Continue ReadingJeff Colella Putter Smith: Between Friends
by Pierre Giroux
Jeff Colella and Putter Smith are like peas in a pod, having made music together long enough to know that trust is more valuable than show. Between Friends is built on that trust from the opening notes, and neither musician ever seems to be trying to impress the other. Instead, they listen with uncommon patience, letting ideas emerge naturally. Their improvisations rarely fall back on familiar jazz vocabulary or well-rehearsed exchanges. Every phrase elicits a fresh response, giving the music ...
Continue ReadingMike Jones: Mike Jones With Strings
by Pierre Giroux
There is something refreshingly honest about a drummerless trio. Without the cushion of cymbals and snare to drive the pulse, every note matters a little more. This format dates back to the Nat King Cole Trio in the 1930s and to the Oscar Peterson-celebrated groups of the 1950s, in which the guitar and bass took responsibility for keeping the music moving. Mike Jones clearly understands that tradition, and Mike Jones with Strings embraces it with confidence and style.
Continue ReadingGergana Velinova: Free
by Pierre Giroux
Every so often, an album arrives that does not seek to be admired so much as understood. This effort by Bulgarian-Canadian vocalist, songwriter, and poet Gergana Velinova, titled Free, fits that category. Velinova spent five years writing the album's ten songs. There is not a wasted word or an unnecessary note. Another part of the project is the artistic reunion between Velinova and multi-instrumentalist and producer Kristian Alexandrov, who have known each other since their teenage years and share a ...
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