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26
Album Review

George Freeman: The Good Life

Read "The Good Life" reviewed by Jack Bowers


For guitarist George Freeman, The Good Life has also been a long life. He was a nimble-fingered ninety-five-year-old plectrist when this splendid album was recorded in May and June 2022, which makes it all the more grievous to know it would be organ maestro Joey DeFrancesco's last recording date; he died of a heart attack some three months later at the relatively young age of fifty-one. Freeman leads two trios here, the first with DeFrancesco on organ ...

30
Album Review

Jeremy Pelt: The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 2/His Muse

Read "The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 2/His Muse" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt's album, The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 2, is a hybrid: nearly one-half jazz quartet (quintet on one track), more than the other half quartet with strings. Strangely enough, the strings are nowhere listed on the album jacket, nor are Pelt's colleagues in his quartet. One has to read an accompanying press release from HighNote Records to learn that they are pianist Victor Gould, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart (with guitarist Chico Pinheiro added on the ...

17
Liner Notes

Wallace Roney: Understanding

Read "Wallace Roney: Understanding" reviewed by John Kelman


With the concept of mentoring an increasingly forgotten part of how young, up-and-coming musicians cut their teeth--learning from older, more experienced musicians before heading out into the world as leaders--the jazz world needs more people like Wallace Roney. One look at every record the trumpeter has made since signing with HighNote in 2004, with Prototype the first of seven albums culminating in the album you're now holding in your hands, and it's clear that Roney takes the concept of mentoring ...

16
Liner Notes

Tom Harrell: Number Five

Read "Tom Harrell: Number Five" reviewed by John Kelman


"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," they say, and since coming to HighNote in 2007, trumpeter Tom Harrell has lived by that old adage, utilizing the same quintet for its auspicious debut, Light On, and three subsequent recordings, culminating in 2011's outstanding Time of the Sun. Number Five continues Harrell's winning streak with the same line-up, but if each successive recording has reflected the ongoing growth of one of today's most compelling small groups--the chemistry deeper and the interaction ...

41
Album Review

Houston Person: Reminiscing at Rudy's

Read "Reminiscing at Rudy's" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The “Rudy's" in the title of tenor saxophonist Houston Person's album, Reminiscing at Rudy's, is not a nightclub or other such venue but the New Jersey studio of celebrated recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder who died in 2016. As befits reminiscing, the bulk of the album's numbers are tender ballads, every one of which lands squarely in Person's amorous wheelhouse. That is not to say the veteran tenor saxophone maestro—who has recorded almost seventy albums as leader ...

29
Album Review

Jeremy Pelt: Soundtrack

Read "Soundtrack" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Although Soundtrack is the name of trumpeter Jeremy Pelt's latest album (more about that in a moment), there is another selection that more readily summarizes Pelt's lyric philosophy: “I Love Music." And while there is ample contrast, camaraderie and color on the album, there is no doubt that Pelt's clear and creative commentaries are the focal point. As for that title, “Soundtrack" is simply the name of a twenty-year-old ballad written for but never recorded by one of Pelt's earlier ...

33
Album Review

Alternative Guitar Summit: Honoring Pat Martino, Volume 1

Read "Honoring Pat Martino, Volume 1" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Each year the Alternative Guitar Summit, led by Joel Harrison, presents a concert to honor a living jazz composer/guitarist. That wasn't possible in 2021, however, as venues in and around New York City were shuttered tight by the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, it was clear that the chosen honoree, the great Pat Martino, was gravely ill and might not have another year to live. With that in mind, members of the Summit took their guitars straight to a studio to record ...

17
Album Review

Houston Person: Live in Paris

Read "Live in Paris" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The greatest jazz musicians have one trait in common; they make everything sound so ridiculously easy that listeners are liable to lose sight of the blood, sweat and tears which brought them to that pinnacle. Tenor saxophonist Houston Person, an octogenarian who keeps sidestepping every obstacle including Father Time, is one such master; regardless of groove or tempo, he seems perfectly at home, never letting an audience see him sweat, even on flag-wavers such as “Lester Leaps In," one of ...

20
Album Review

George Cables: Too Close for Comfort

Read "Too Close for Comfort" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Maestro George Cables returns to the trio format on Too Close for Comfort, the twenty-first recording as leader of own groups. That means listeners are able to hear even more of his deft and delightful piano, always a welcome bonus. Cables is admirably supported throughout by bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Victor Lewis. Cables leads with the title song, which is played slightly off-kilter, modestly blurring its resemblance to Sammy Davis Jr.'s mega-hit from the Broadway musical ...

4
Album Review

Black Art Jazz Collective: Ascension

Read "Ascension" reviewed by Ian Patterson


The name has obvious political resonance. Indeed, the raison d'être of the Black Art Jazz Collective, the sextet founded by Wayne Escoffery, Jeremy Pelt and Jonathon Blake in 2013, is to celebrate African American excellence on the one hand, and--not unrelated--to raise political consciousness on the other. The BAJC's debut album,Presented By The Side Door Jazz Club (Sunnyside Records, 2016) paid homage to W. E. B. Dubois and Barack Obama, while recalling, too, the history of slavery. Ascension plows a ...


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