Jazz Articles
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John O'Gallagher: Ancestral
by Dan McClenaghan
Saxophonist John O'Gallagher keeps moving east in his search for musical expression. Born in Anaheim, California, before relocating to New York City and living there for thirty years, he finds himself (in 2025) in Lisbon, Portugal. He boasts a played with/recorded with resume to knock the proverbial socks off (Joe Henderson, Tony Malaby, Maria Schneider, Kenny Wheeler, and more). He also dived John Coltrane's late period explorations--Interstellar Space (Impulse!, 1974) and Stellar Regions (Impulse Records, 1967), From this Coltrane-ian immersion, ...
Continue ReadingTony Tixier: Poems Never End
by Neil Duggan
Serendipity is the art of everything being in the right place at the right time, and so it proved for Tony Tixier on a whirlwind trip to New York City. Recorded during a single afternoon and without a predetermined plan for the session, the album Poems Never End was recorded in one take, with nothing added, taken away, or otherwise embellished in post-production. Frenchman Tixier is a highly versatile pianist who has worked in most small group formats ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Colligan: Live At The Jazz Standard
by Carl Medsker
During its relatively brief life, the Jazz Standard hosted many wonderful evenings of creative music. Artists performing in the basement beneath the barbecue restaurant ranged from Houston Person to Roy Haynes to Wadada Leo Smith. The Mingus Big Band held forth on most Monday evenings. Sadly, the club succumbed in 2021 to the economic pain caused by the pandemic. In memorium, we now have a robustly recorded live set from 2014 by the George Colligan trio. It is ...
Continue ReadingJosephine Davies: Satori: Weatherwards
by Chris May
From an international perspective, the best kept secret in British jazz could be tenor and soprano saxophonist Josephine Davies. She first recorded in 2000 as a member of Crissy Lee's Jazz Orchestra, a fifteen piece all-woman band who made one album, the self-produced ...With Body And Soul. (Actually, there was one male in the lineup, trumpeter Craig Wild, and the joke in the boys' club that British jazz pretty much still was at the time, was that he had the ...
Continue ReadingOrlando le Fleming & Romantic Funk: Wandering Talk
by Chris May
Wandering Talk is the second part of a project from British bassist Orlando le Fleming which began with Romantic Funk: The Unfamiliar (Whirlwind, 2020). The album convincingly brings together the acoustic jazz tradition and the lush but muscular electric fusion which emerged in the 1980s. Not for nothing is one of le Fleming's heroes, paid tribute to on both albums, Wayne Shorter, a master of acoustic jazz and an architect of electric fusion. Romantic Funk: The Unfamiliar ...
Continue ReadingScott Kinsey: Luniwaz Live
by Jim Worsley
Fans of Weather Report or the Zawinul Syndicate or for that matter most any of Joe Zawinul's work, will llikely appreciate this album led by keyboardist Scott Kinsey. The Austrian keyboardist Zawinul, along with legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter, were the founders of Weather Report. Kinsey became a prodigy of Zawinul and has done more than just keep the music alive. First came (We Speak Luniwaz:The Music of Joe Zawinul, Whirlwind Recordings, 2019). That studio album affirmed not only Kinsey's affinity ...
Continue ReadingScott Kinsey: Luniwaz LIVE
by Mike Jacobs
Scott Kinsey's connection to the music of Joe Zawinul and Weather Report is undeniable--and hardly new to even casual partakers of the keyboardist's work. As Kinsey explains, the pull was there from the beginning: “Joe was an innovative improviser, composer, and conceptualist but for me, especially so as the first jazz synthesist I had ever encountered. His electric keyboard work was showing us the future, note by note." But even if Kinsey garnered Zawinul comparisons, listeners weren't listening ...
Continue ReadingEmpirical: Wonder Is The Beginning
by Chris May
London's Empirical quartet, which first recorded in 2007 as a quintet, has had a steady lineup since 2009's sophomore album, Out 'n' In (Naim): Nathaniel Facey on alto saxophone, Lewis Wright on vibraphone, Tom Farmer on double bass and Shaney Forbes on drums. A stable lineup has given the group a certain consistency of sound, though a changing cast of featured guests has bounded it somewhat. That practically all the tunes the group plays are originals contributes to the consistency. ...
Continue ReadingCyrille Aimée: À Fleur de Peau
by Katchie Cartwright
Like other parts of Cyrille Aimée's musical journey (her time spent learning “gypsy jazz" with Manouche Romani people in Samois-sur-Seine, for example), À Fleur de Peau (Hypersensitive) has an engaging tale attached. In 2018, on a visit to the Costa Rican jungle at a pivotal moment in her personal life, Aimée was inspired to write “Inside and Out" (track four on the album). Upon her return to the US, she played the composition for producer and multi-instrumentalist Jake Sherman. They ...
Continue ReadingDavid Preston: Purple / Black Vol. One
by Neil Duggan
Guitarist David Preston, one third of Preston-Glasgow-Lowe, has previously released two recordings with that trio, exhibiting an intense fusion-based style. He is often found sharing on-stage credentials with musicians such as Emma Rawicz and Melody Gardot. For Purple / Black Vol. One, his debut recording as leader, he has opted for a simpler, more distinctive soundscape which emphasises atmosphere and texture. Despite this change of style, Kevin Glasgow remains as electric bassist and they are joined by two ...
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