Jazz Articles

Mark Murphy: Live in Athens, Greece

by Dan Bilawsky
April 29, 2016

No figure in jazz personified hip the way that the late Mark Murphy did. For more than half a century he taught the world what it meant to be a true artist, pushing boundaries, walking the tightrope, and going where he pleased. He had it all--wit, charm, guile, good taste, a pure improviser's spirit, a flexible and powerful voice--and he willingly shared it. Murphy remained current and above the trend-based fray(s) for most of his career, starting ...

Eric Comstock: No One Knows

by Jerry D'Souza
June 4, 2005

Eric Comstock's third album finds the pianist/vocalist moving deeper into jazz territory with a stellar cast of jazz musicians. The move certainly works; while the band serves in top-notch fashion, Comstock makes it all the more relevant with his ability to phrase and enunciate these pieces the way jazz song should be treated. Stylistic touches apart, he imbues the words with yearning, joy, or pathos to bring in the right shade of emotion.

Comstock says that he loves ...

Eric Comstock: No One Knows

by Michael P. Gladstone
May 14, 2005

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to see a performance of Singing Astaire: A Fred Astaire Songbook presented at NYC's Birdland during daylight hours. This revue was written by a very talented Eric Comstock, who also played piano and sang, along with two equally talented vocalists, Hilary Kole and Christopher Gines. Comstock seamlessly stitched together 29 Astaire-associated standards, some in conceptual medleys with entertaining anecdotes. Prior to that, Comstock co-wrote the long-running Off Broadway revue Our Sinatra.

Eric Comstock: No One Knows

by William Grim
May 1, 2005

Wow! There are simply not enough superlatives for this CD. Eric Comstock “owns" the Great American Songbook like Tony Bennett and Mel Torme, and he is one of the best of the crop of young jazz singers and song stylists to come along in recent years. Blessed with perfect intonation and incredible enunciation, Comstock does equal justice to both music and words. His piano work is elegant and his arrangements are both witty and at times erudite. Although he's a ...

Eric Comstock: No One Knows

by Dan McClenaghan
April 28, 2005

Pianist/vocalist Eric Comstock opens No One Knows with the Charlie Haden/Arthur Hamilton tune “Easy on the Heart," a gentle ballad featuring Frank Wess doing a slow smolder on tenor sax behind the smooth vocal flow. Comstock strikes me here as coming from the line of singers that starts with Bing Crosby and runs through Frank Sinata and Tony Bennett. He sounds cool, and he swings on the next song, “To the Ends of the Earth," with Peter Bernstein taking a ...

Barbara Carroll: Barbara at Birdland

by Elliott Simon
February 22, 2005

A subtle Jay Leonhart bass bridge from Harold Arlen's classic “Blues in the Night" segues into the enchanting melody of “You and the Night and the Music" after a tension-building piano/bass/cymbal opener. Such is the stuff that legendary pianist Barbara Carroll brings together on Live at Birdland. Recorded at the NYC venue with her first-call rhythm section rounded out by drummer Joe Cocuzzo, a hit parade of standards is given new life by tempo changes and mood-inducing arrangements that swing, ...

Nancy Harrow: The Marble Faun-Jazz Variations on a Theme by Hawthorne

by Dave Nathan
February 1, 2001

Nancy Harrow has been on the jazz scene for more than 30 years as a vocalist earning the devotion of a dedicated following of fans and enormous respect among jazz musicians. But she is also a talented composer and librettist having created song cycles from such classics as Willa Cather's Lost Lady and Waldemar Bronsels' The Adventures of Maya the Bee. Here she wields her magic pen creating a musical passion play from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. Hawthorne's tale ...