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6
Liner Notes

Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors: The Meeting

Read "Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors: The Meeting" reviewed by Howard Mandel


How far must a reeds virtuoso from Bashkiria--a town in the Ural Mountains, southeast of Moscow towards Mongolia--and a pianist-composer-educator from southern Illinois, now living in Philadelphia, have to go to get together? Not very, based on the music Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors arrive at on The Meeting. Simply to a shared sense of joy in swinging rhythms, warm, rich harmonies and singable songs. In their second co-led album Kireyev and Javors offer more delightful proof that ...

13
Album Review

Oleg Kireyev & Keith Javors: The Meeting

Read "The Meeting" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Performing together since 2007, Russian saxophonist Oleg Kireyev and Philadelphia-based pianist Keith Javors formed a solid quartet they eventually led to the studio for their debut album Rhyme & Reason (Inarhyme Records, 2010). The Meeting is their follow up recording with a program of four originals and three re-imagined tunes from The Great American Songbook delivered in a tasteful post-bop style. Interestingly enough, it was Kireyev who discovered Javors while surfing the internet and cemented their friendship while ...

6
Album Review

Mark Lomax Trio: Isis and Osiris

Read "Isis and Osiris" reviewed by Dave Wayne


Record collectors and DJs are fond of the term “spiritual jazz." Like most colloquialisms, its meaning is nebulous and vague; more emotional than factual, more indicative of a feeling that the music projects, as opposed to a distinct lineage or coterie of musicians. For many, the term refers to jazz that incorporates African and Middle Eastern rhythmic and harmonic concepts, the application of abstruse philosophies such as Egyptology, overt displays of religious devotion (both Christian and non-Christian), and strong ties ...

145
Album Review

Mark A. Lomax: The State of Black America

Read "The State of Black America" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose


There has not been such an in-your-face title for an album of music in a long, long time. Drummer Mark Lomax has decided that it is necessary and, therefore, goes for the jugular by calling his album The State of Black America. Perhaps the release is timely, with racism seemingly raising its ugly head more frequently since Barak Obama was elected President of the United States in 2008. So, in the mind of the drummer and leader of this trio, ...

218
Album Review

Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors: Rhyme and Reason

Read "Rhyme and Reason" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose


Rhyme and Reason is a spare collection of just six charts that swing with both familiar and unfamiliar time. All four members of this vibrant quartet, fronted by pianist Keith Javors and saxophonist Oleg Kireyev, seem prepared to let the music flow from the most commonly known musical focal point out into the sea of surprise, where each of the artists appears to corral the unknown. Javors has a rather forthright style, but does not shy away from the softer ...

245
Album Review

The Mark Lomax Trio: The State Of Black America

Read "The State Of Black America" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Drummer/composer/band leader Mark Lomax must not be afraid of ghosts. Because with all the spirits hovering over his recording The State Of Black America, it would be understandable that he and his band of saxophonist Edwin Bayard and bassist Dean Hulett might be a bit intimidated to bridge the firebrand music of the 1960s from today's world. To get there they were obliged to walk the roads traveled by John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Sonny Rollins, John Tchicai and Archie Shepp.

468
Album Review

Chris Potter / Steve Wilson / Terell Stafford / Keith Javors / Delbert Felix / John Davis: Coming Together

Read "Coming Together" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Brendan Edward Romaneck was a young twenty-four-year-old saxophonist and composer preparing for his first recording date in the spring of 2005, when on April 20th he passed away just two weeks after his birthday. Coming Together was to be Romaneck's debut disc, containing eight original compositions and three covers. It now serves as a tribute to the young man, when his parents moved forward with the project in memory of their son. Romaneck had already lined up trumpeter Terell Stafford, ...


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