Jazz Articles
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Ted Brown Quartet: Just You Just Me
by Jack Kenny
Ted Brown's 2013 album, recorded at various locations in New York and New Jersey, is steeped in the traditions of both Lester Young and Lennie Tristano, but what emerges is distinctly his own. Born in 1927, Brown channels the inspirations of these jazz giants, yet asserts his own individuality in every phrase. The ghostly presences of Young and Tristano haunt the grooves, but Brown's interpretive voice remains unmistakable. Tristano's concept of improvisation--marked by avoidance of standard licks and ...
Continue ReadingRich Peare: Blues For Peter
by Jack Kenny
There is a special kind of pleasure in sitting in a jazz club, listening to talented musicians use their skills to explore some of the finest melodies of the last sixty years. In their debut album, Blues for Peter, Rich Peare (classical guitar) and Don Messina (double bass) offer just that experience. The album features eight improvised tracks--seven standards and one blues--plucked on a nylon-stringed classical guitar and a gut-stringed double bass. Messina's connection to jazz is deep-rooted. ...
Continue ReadingAlexis Parsons: Alexis
by Richard J Salvucci
Alexis Parsons is an honest-to-goodness jazz singer. She has considerable vocal chops, a wide range and great time. She usually comes in right on or slightly behind the beat. Except when she does not. Which makes for considerable contrast and interest. Her sense of drama is apropos ("Organ Grinder" may be the sole exception, but de gustibus) and you often have the sense you are listening to an instrumentalist rather than a singer. Or to put it differently, Ms Parsons ...
Continue ReadingAlexis Parsons: Alexis
by Jack Bowers
The self-named Alexis is the third album by New York-based vocalist Alexis Parsons. To showcase her talents, she has chosen a medley of standards (half a dozen) and lesser-known but engaging originals, opening and closing with the Cole Porter classics “Easy to Love" and “In the Still of the Night." Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins, Kurt Weill, Astrud Gilberto and even Franz Schubert are also represented. For back-up, Parsons employs two trios—pianist David Berkman, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Matt ...
Continue ReadingJessica Jones Quartet: Moxie
by Dan Bilawsky
Moxie is both an extension of tenor saxophonist Jessica Jones' previous work and a glimpse back to an earlier point in her career: she continues to explore the possibilities inherent in a piano-less quartet with a two-tenor front line while reuniting with a rhythm duo that she worked with in the '80s--bassist Stomu Takeishi and drummer Kenny Wolleson. The music that she makes here, with that team and fellow tenor/husband Tony Jones, is predictably unpredictable, grounded yet far-reaching, and irresistibly ...
Continue ReadingConnie Crothers: Concert In Paris
by John Ephland
Connie Crothers' piano sounds like nothing you've heard before. Sure, it's acoustic, she plays melodies, she can be inside or outside the music. One thing she isn't, though, is wishy-washy. One of her latest, Concert In Paris, is a solo effort. And for anyone who loves the intimacy of a solo-piano recital, this one more jazz than classical in nature; for anyone who digs the feeling of being played to and for in a cozy setting; for anyone who likes ...
Continue ReadingJessica Jones & Mark Taylor: Live at the Freight
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Live at the Freight chronicles a June 2011 date at the venerable Freight & Salvage coffeehouse in Berkeley, California, co-led by tenor saxophonist Jessica Jones and French horn and mellophone player Mark Taylor. The compositions, all originals and mostly quite good, are split between the two leaders.The first slightly unusual twist to the quartet is the presence of the French horn, rather than a trumpet. Saxophonist Jones makes the case for the French horn this way: “Trumpeters don't ...
Continue ReadingTony Jones: Pitch, Rhythm, and Consciousness
by Matt Marshall
On this ruminative record--and, indeed, it is a record, released primarily on vinyl, with MP3 downloads available--saxophonist Tony Jones, violinist Charles Burnham and percussionist Kenny Wollesen show themselves wholly comfortable within the quiet sonic space about them. Jones is the lead voice--the lead traveler, as it were--working his way across a terrain that is at once wide open and timeless, and newly created by the musicians themselves. The opener, “Dear Toy," one of two tunes on the ...
Continue ReadingConnie Crothers / Bill Payne: Conversations
by Marc Medwin
Connie Crothers is one of the most versatile pianists on a scene that is so often mislabeled free jazz. Her pianism has been cultivated through long years of study and deep listening, evident in each tone, chord and gesture. Overwhelming intensity, at whatever volume, is juxtaposed with transparent beauty in a style that is as unique as it is unpredictable. Crothers has the perfect partner in clarinetist Bill Payne, with this disc of dialogues belying a long ...
Continue ReadingJessica Jones Quartet: Word
by Michael P. Gladstone
The provocative Word takes a few bites from different pies, making it quite an interesting album. This is a Jones family project--leader, pianist and saxophonist Jessica is joined by husband Tony (saxophone), daughter Candace (vocals) and son Levi (bass).
Jessica Jones, Bay Area native, is now a resident of Brooklyn. Both she and her husband have a background working within the free jazz community with artists including Joseph Jarman, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor and Peter Apfelbaum. ...
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