Jazz Articles
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Hilary Gardner: On the Trail With the Lonesome Pines
by Dan Bilawsky
How does an Alaskan-reared, New York-based singer of Great America Songbook virtue come to explore trail songs from the '30s and '40s? The answer is quite simple: A pandemic-produced mixture of curiosity and yearning for open pastures. While cooped up in her Brooklyn apartment during early quarantine days, Hilary Gardner began to research the rich if oft-neglected history of this sub-genre, both as it lives and breathes in its own space and connects directly to first-rate jazz and tin pan ...
read moreHilary Gardner: On the Trail With the Lonesome Pines
by John Chacona
It might be hard for the young'uns to believe, but there was a time when movie houses and television screens were filled with westerns. Tales of cowpokes and their trusty horses, outlaws, dogies and tumblin' tumbleweeds were so popular that various sub-genres of westerns flourished as brand extensions. One of these featured the singing cowboy trope, and elevated such figures as Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter and most notably, Gene Autry, to stardom. The songs they sang were western-ish, ...
read moreNicky Schrire: Nowhere Girl
by Dan Bilawsky
The search for identity is a sine qua non of any artist's experience and development. But for a musician like Nicky Schrire, it goes much deeper than most. Born in London, raised in South Africa, studying and entering the professional ranks in New York and working back through her initial points of origin before relocating to Toronto in 2020, this noted vocalist-composer has established herself as a globetrotter of the first order. Stylistically, as with geography, Schrire hits multiple points ...
read moreSara Caswell: The Way To You
by Jack Bowers
Although The Way to You is heralded as Grammy-nominated violinist Sara Caswell's first album as a leader in more than seventeen years, it was actually recorded in 2019, roughly four years before its release date. Still, it is Caswell's first new album in quite a long time, and those who relish her tasteful and melodic violin should be grateful for that. Caswell leads her longtime working quartet here, with vibraphonist Chris Dingman sitting in on four of ...
read moreAnat Cohen: Quartetinho
by Mike Jurkovic
As it has manifested on world stages and such noteworthy releases as Luminosa and Claroscuro (Anzic Records, 2015, 2012), Grammy-nominated clarinetist, composer & bandleader Anat Cohen's deep fascination and delight with world music, especially Brazil's hot melding of South African rhythms, cajun swing, and European dance, makes Quartetinhoan irrepressible listen. Infused and bursting with a multitude of melody left, right, and center, the charismatic Cohen takes a few steps back from her masterful tentet outing Triple Helix(Anzic, 2019) ...
read moreJoel Frahm: The Bright Side
by Hrayr Attarian
Saxophonist Joel Frahm is an accomplished virtuoso with an easily recognizable style. He deftly balances an accessible, mellifluous sound with an explorative spirit. His tenth release as a leader, the captivating The Bright Side, is a collection of ten brilliant originals interpreted in a spare trio setting. The laid back atmosphere and the band's seamless camaraderie make for an engaging listening experience and the warmth, whimsy and intelligent motifs create the album's cohesiveness. “Thinking of Benny" opens with ...
read moreJoel Frahm: The Bright Side
by Dan McClenaghan
Chordless trio recordings featuring saxophone, bass and drums, no piano or guitar in the building, always draw comparisons to 1957 when a pair of the groundbreakers of the genre were recorded by saxophonist Sonny Rollins with A Night At The Village Vanguard (Blue Note Records, 1958) and Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957). Saxophonist Joel Frahm obviously looked back to that time, having transcribed and memorized Rollins' solo on “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise" (from the Village Vanguard album) as ...
read moreErnesto Cervini: Tetrahedron
by C. Michael Bailey
Matthew Zapruder, in his book Why Poetry (HarperCollins, 2017), draws an informative parallel between reading poetry and listening to classical music: ...the act of treating poetry like a difficult activity one needs to master can easily perpetrate ... mistaken, and pervasive, ideas about poetry that make it hard to read in the first place. Like classical music, poetry has an unfortunate reputation for requiring special training and education to appreciate.... This same reasoning applies to jazz, ...
read moreErnesto Cervini: Tetrahedron
by Friedrich Kunzmann
A tetrahedron is a pyramid with a triangle base, thus a three dimensional shape consisting of four triangle faces. On the cover of his newest undertaking as a leader, Canadian drummer Ernesto Cervini uses this shape as an analogy to his working trio inviting a fourth member to the party. In this case the fourth person is New York-based guitarist Nir Felder, whom Cervini had met during his time studying at the Manhattan School of Music, between 2003 and 2007. ...
read moreDUCHESS: Live At Jazz Standard
by Dan Bilawsky
There are a fair number of vocal groups blending harmoniously and swinging through the jazz set today, but none are as charmingly sassy as DUCHESS. With two studio albums already under a collective belt—actually three, if you include an under-the-radar Christmas set—it only made sense for vocalists Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner and Melissa Stylianou to finally show the greater listening community what Duchess does on the stage. Joining up with its regular rhythm section—pianist Michael Cabe, guitarist ...
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