Jazz Articles

Webb T's Fleet: Live At Zanzibar Blue

by AAJ Staff
August 1, 2000

With “Live At Zanzibar Blue", not only has Encounter Records called the listening public's attention to an energetic and inspiring drummer who has been performing below the radar screen of listeners beyond the Philadelphia area for way too long. But also, the label has captured the atmosphere of a live organ quartet performance--which of late has been all too rare--in one of Philadelphia's leading jazz clubs. As far as I know, Zanzibar Blue hasn't been the venue for many live ...

Various: Monkadelphia

by AAJ Staff
July 1, 2000

That scrappy, enterprising and creative jazz label out of Philadelphia, Encounter Records, has done it again by documenting some encounters of that city's musicians with the artist known as Monk.Rather than retreading often-heard arrangements of Monk's tunes, with only the players changing, the Philadelphians of “Monkadelphia" have created their own approach to Thelonious' challenging music. Recorded before an audience at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, the style that distinguishes this CD involves colors and texture. The contributions ...

J.D. Walter: Sirens In The C-House

by AAJ Staff
May 1, 2000

Five stars! Five stars, I tell you! “Sirens In The C-House" is, without a doubt, a five-star CD! J.D. Walter is a five-star singer!

Nay, ten stars! A hundred stars! Turn out the stars! Yowza!

“Sirens In The C-House" reveals the folly of trying to rate music, making it a kind of competition and blessing a reviewer's favorites with the “ultimate" rating, whatever that may be. “Sirens In The C-House" is absolutely, from track one to track nine, a stunner. ...

Various: Live At Ortlieb's Jazzhaus

by AAJ Staff
May 1, 2000

Ortlieb’s is “the house of jazz as far as Philadelphia is concerned,” according to local legend Evelyn Simms in one of the ten “soundbytes” used throughout the two CD’s comprising “Live At Ortlieb’s Jazzhaus.”

That’s quite an accomplishment when you consider that the club has been in existence for approximately a dozen years after owner Pete Souder risked his savings to pursue his dream of owning a jazz club. In spite of the usual financial challenges facing jazz club owners, ...

Dan Kleiman: Siora

by AAJ Staff
February 1, 2000

Straight out of Philadelphia--home of Coltrane, Benny Golson, Ted Curson, the Heaths, Odean Pope, McCoy Tyner, Mickey Roker, Joey DeFrancesco, and on and on--comes, surprisingly, some excellent Brazilian music.

Don't ask me how it got there. It's there, take my word for it.

Seemingly the inspiration of keyboardist Dan Kleiman, “Siora" the CD and, I assume, Siora the group take hold of Brazilian rhythms and deliver a repertoire of indigenous tune, as well as Kleiman compositions, with assurance, insight and ...

Ken Shepherd: Worth The Wait

by AAJ Staff
February 1, 2000

In his debut recording on Philadelphia's home-grown jazz label, Encounter Records, vocalist-or maybe more appropriately vocalesist-Ken Shepherd proves that scat singing isn't exclusively the domain of relatively few male singers such as Jon Hendricks or Kurt Elling. Au contraire. One needs only to attend some of the IAJE vocal performances and/or clinics to realize that interest in jazz singing is budding, and in many cases blossoming, throughout the country.

Ken Shepherd is in full bloom as he finally gets the ...

Denis DeBlasio: Duets

by AAJ Staff
March 1, 1997

While these two Denis DeBlasio CDs are packaged as a set, they actually project two very different concepts joined in continuity by DeBlasio's style and instrumentation and by pianist Jim Ridl's percussive backup and imaginative soloing. The content of the albums is self-explanatory. Reflections of Childhood is, according to the liner notes, DeBlasio's “jazz interpretations of being a father and reliving my childhood." Duets, of course, consists of a series of standards and original compositions performed by DeBlasio and Ridl ...