Jazz Articles
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Charles Lloyd: Figure In Blue
by Jack Kenny
Jazz listeners with long memories will remember that Charles Lloyd was not always as revered as he is today. In the 1960s, his association with the “Summer of Love" and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury scene led some to question his seriousness, seeing him as flirting with commercialism. Six decades on, that perception has aged away. Lloyd's work in 2025 is almost comparable to Beethoven's late quartets--music of depth, reflection, and spiritual weight. He has passed beyond being a national treasure; he ...
Continue ReadingNels Cline: Consentrik Quartet
by Don Ball
While Nels Cline has been playing the guitar-hero rock star for the past two decades with Wilco, he continues to release his own solo recordings under various names (including the Nels Cline 4 and the Nels Cline Singers, which, amusingly, contain no vocalists) tailored toward the avant-garde side of jazz (with the notable exception of his lush, lovely jazz orchestra Blue Note release from 2016, Lovers). His 2025 release, Consentrik Quartet, brings together some of the finest jazz musicians working ...
Continue ReadingTrio and Quintet
by C. Michael Bailey
Pianist and composer Elmo Hope has more in common with Tadd Dameron than most of his other jazz peers. Both men were primarily composers and arrangers who concentrated on their own music rather than standards. Both men spent their professional lives in New York City during the twilight of bebop and the flourishing of hard bop. Neither man boasted large discographies as leaders, but appeared on a significant number of recordings as sidemen. Their careers were both shortened dramatically by ...
Continue ReadingJoshua Redman: Words Fall Short
by Doug Collette
After extended tenures on Warner Brothers and Nonesuch Records, saxophonist/composer/bandleader Joshua Redman debuted on the Blue Note jazz label in 2023 with Where We Are. And while its successor, Words Fall Short, is right in line with that record by featuring vocals, it initiates a new phase in the leader's career by showcasing his new quartet in its recorded debut. Formed as prelude to the world tour designed to support the previous effort, pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Philip ...
Continue ReadingBranford Marsalis: Belonging
by Thierry De Clemensat
It appears to be that time of year when all musicians with ties to New Orleans unveil their latest albums. This time, we are graced with a release from one of the most illustrious members of the Marsalis family. This remarkably elegant album represents Branford Marsalis and his quartet's vision of Belonging, the seminal record Keith Jarrett recorded in 1974 (ECM). This highly sophisticated reinterpretation borders on an outright rewriting of the original, with the crème de la crème of ...
Continue ReadingBranford Marsalis Quartet: Belonging
by Mike Jurkovic
For his Blue Note debut, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his long-standing quartet--pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner--hit the sweet spot again and again and again, reinterpreting and re-imagining Keith Jarrett's epochal 1974 ECM classic, Belonging. Not only did Jarrett introduce the world to his no-holds-barred fear-no-idea European quartet--saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson and drummer Jon Christensen--he was also in one of the most creative periods of his decades-long illuminating career. Consider the tense free-wheeling drive ...
Continue ReadingArtemis: Arboresque
by Mike Jurkovic
The virtuoso musicians of Artemis--pianist Renee Rosnes trumpeter Ingrid Jensen saxophonist Nicole Glover bassist Noriko Ueda, and drummer Allison Miller --get down to business quick on their third for Blue Note Arboresque. A testament to collaborative intuition and instinct, Arboresque may vary more in tempo and mood than its acclaimed predecessors--2023's ringing In Real Time and 2020's standard-setting debut Artemis--but it never lacks purpose or promise. It never goes looking for something it does not find. Jumping off with unsung pianist Donald Brown's ...
Continue ReadingOut Of/Into: Motion I
by Mike Jurkovic
Most supergroups happen and barely dent the dust. Despite those odds, one or two happen for a reason. That reason is Motion I by Out Of/Into. Formerly known as The Blue Note Quintet--pianist Gerald Clayton, alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, vibraphonist Joel Ross, drummer Kendrick Scott, and bassist Matt Brewer--hijack the lead track “Ofafrii" with a brazen romp of everything tuneful and tasty. Wilkins and Ross virtually ground the driving ethic while power-gliding above the whole enterprise. It is a hellion ride, considering ...
Continue ReadingMcCoy Tyner / Joe Henderson: Forces Of Nature: Live At Slugs'
by Joshua Weiner
How does one go about nominating Zev Feldman for a Nobel Peace Prize? Time and again, the intrepid “Jazz Detective" tracks down unknown, unheard, un-even-hoped-for sonic artifacts, painstakingly brushes away the audio dust and grime, and puts us front and center at events that rewrite the history of jazz. Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs' another Feldman's project, in collaboration with Blue Note President Don Was, is quite possibly his greatest, a double album of such excitement, beauty, and power ...
Continue ReadingMcCoy Tyner / Joe Henderson: Forces Of Nature: Live At Slugs'
by Mike Jurkovic
When recordings like Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs' seemingly falls from yonder jazz sky, we must stop to thank those swinging stars above for our grand fortune. Because despite all our flaws--a broken politic, a poisoned planet, constant wartime bickering--we are a fortunate, if mostly undeserving, race of peculiarities. That becomes especially apparent when random, instantaneous works of art and human affinity like this grace our path. Located at 242 East 3rd Street between Avenue B and ...
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