Jazz Articles
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Tom Guarna: Spirit Science
by Jack Bowers
Guitarist / composer Tom Guarna uses geometric concepts and patterns as a starting point on Spirit Science, his eighth album as leader, pairing its mathematical precision with spiritual awareness to more faithfully represent his musical point of view. Be that as it may, Guarna's handiwork must of course be appraised for its perception and effect on the listener, not for any tenets on which it is based. In other words, when all the premises have been explored, what ...
read moreTom Guarna: Spirit Science
by Friedrich Kunzmann
With The Wishing Stones (Destiny Records, 2017) New York-based guitarist Tom Guarna released something of a breakthrough album, featuring a prominently cast quartet made up of Brian Blade on drums, John Patitucci on bass and pianist Jon Cowherd. With that album Guarna perfected his personal style of composition, which sees post-bop language taken to more extensive structures filtered through modern sonic production values. Spirit Science picks up where that album left off and delivers another engaging set of modern post-bop ...
read moreCharlie Rauh: Hiraeth
by Jim Olin
Charlie Rauh is a musician with a very diverse background. He is also an incredibly skilled guitarist who knows how to use the instrument to capture all the different nuances of his compositions. His music defies the average expectation which the audience imposes on guitar players. He knows how to embrace melody but, perhaps, one of the most interesting aspects of Rauh's work on Hiraeth is that he often lets melodies interact with dissonance, adding more value to the texture ...
read moreMichael Eaton: Dialogical
by Jerome Wilson
Saxophonist Michael Eaton covers a lot of ground on this CD, using several different configurations of musicians in a program that encompasses angular, funk-laced fusion, airy sax and flute duets, a multi-saxophone workout and minimalism in the Philip Glass style. A key sideman here is guitarist Lionel Loueke whose unique style of playing and singing appears on four tracks. His clipped Morse-code vocals and guitar thread through the angular rhythms of “Juno" and “Aphoristic," complementing the swirling, choppy ...
read moreCharlie Rauh and Cameron Mizell: What We Have In Common
by Jim Olin
Charlie Rauh and Cameron Mizell combine the immediacy of folk music with the unique twists of jazz. Their guitar playing is nuanced, making the most out of every detail of their performances. Rauh and Mizell both have a knack for focusing on the small things, making each moment special. However, they can also work on the bigger picture. As a result, What We Have In Common is an album which feels understated and direct. It is not an ...
read moreMichael Eaton: Dialogical
by Troy Dostert
A saxophonist and composer with uncommon ambition, Michael Eaton seems to recognize no limits whatsoever on his craft. He's played in virtually every style imaginable: free improvisation, Latin jazz, post-bop, classical, reggae and rock, just to scratch the surface--and he keeps company with a cross-section of today's cutting-edge players, including James Brandon Lewis, Michael Attias and Jonathan Finlayson, all of whom appeared in a much-feted concert he put together with Adam Minkoff in 2015 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of ...
read moreBrad Whiteley: Presence
by Mike Jurkovic
It's not stretching the imagination to wonder where and how New York City fits the myriad of excellent jazz players who call the city home. They come, gratefully, from everywhere, bringing with them fresh ideas, odd twists on the tried and true and a creative energy that lights this most fertile diaspora. Making comparisons with Dave Brubeck can often be a stretch of that same imagination and also a fool's errand. But Whiteley, who navigates his many selves—his ...
read moreBrad Whiteley: Presence
by Jerome Wilson
Pianist Brad Whiteley has had a lot of varied experiences in his career. He has played with rock artists like Regina Spektor and David Byrne and improvisers like Dave Liebman and Cameron Mizell. He's also worked on film soundtracks and played in the pit band of a Broadway show. That eclecticism is reflected in Presence--his second album as a leader--through his original compositions mixing varying combinations of jazz-rock, mainstream jazz, progressive rock, and jazz-funk. “Dusk" begins the program ...
read moreCharlie Rauh: Viriditas
by Jim Olin
New York City-based composer/guitarist Charlie Rauh has a special take on his music, focused on the avant-garde side of jazz. His sound is laced with intriguing melodies and dynamic rhythms, inspired by genres as diverse as experimental and free improvisation, to mention a few. This eclectic and diverse creative approach that Rauh is able to introduce into his sound fuels the imagination, and it definitely sets the bar higher. His latest album Viriditas is a unique combination of gripping sonic ...
read moreCameron Mizell: Memory/Imagination
by Jim Olin
Cameron Mizell's new album, Memory/Imagination, is an exciting collection of tracks that will spark the imagination and win over the heart. The composer/guitarist is certainly consistent in crafting records that are avant-garde and improvisational while stimulating emotionally. It's a creative balance that isn't easily achievable; many other artists veer too much towards one side. However, Mizell focuses on music as poetry in motion, and no words are needed for him to paint his pictures of the mind. The ...
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