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Eric Clapton: Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010
by Doug Collette
Eric ClaptonCrossroads Guitar Festival 2010Rhino2010 The latest in a series of festivals created, in part, to gather funds to subsidize the rehab center guitarist Eric Clapton founded in 2004, Crossroads 2010 may not have had the longest roster or the most varied list of participants, but most of the performers who appeared are presented to maximum effect in this package . The setlist, as featured in order on the ...
Continue Reading...Zed Trio: Lost Transitions
by Glenn Astarita
Zed Trio abides by an excitable, free-form line of attack, engulfed in hazardous routes and hardcore experimentalism, while zooming in for the kill. With downward spirals and a cavalcade of soaring forays, they impart nuance and chatty dialogues into the plot. It's a perpetual renewal process on Lost Transitions. On “Zed Leppelin Crash Test," the trio constructs an avant-garde spin on Led Zeppelin's hard-rock aura, and take matters to unequivocal abstractness. Guitarist David Lataillade tenders an edgy underpinning ...
Continue Reading...Richie Beirach & Dave Liebman: Quest for Freedom
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Quest for Freedom--featuring soprano saxophonist Dave Liebman, pianist Richie Beirach, and the arrangements of Jim McNeely, and performed with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band--contains some of the most vivid music on record. Almost all of this has to do with three factors: Liebman and Beirach's ingenious compositions and stunning performances; McNeely's intuitive arrangements; and the sublime readings by the members of the entire ensemble. The album is as large as life--pensive and brooding, full of the depth and breadth of ...
Continue Reading...Dvora Davis: A Simple Affair
by Guy Zinger
"There are days in my life when I feel so right... and I just want to sing my song," quoting the opening track of A Simple Affair, “There R Days." The entire CD is soaked with this melancholic yet optimistic mood. A simple affair, that's what it is all about. Dvora Davis and her accomplice, pianist Jochem Julius Braat, convey this feeling throughout the disc--their own creation--with Braat composing and arranging, and Davis in charge of the lyrics. The talented ...
Continue Reading...Tops in '10: The Best Big Band Albums of the Year
by Jack Bowers
The holiday season is upon us, which means it's a perfect time to name my choices for the best big band albums of 2010. Looking back, this was a better year for large ensembles than memory envisaged, and narrowing the list of candidates to 10 wasn't as easy as I thought it might be. Nevertheless, the task has been completed, and here are my Top 10 choices, accompanied by a few words about each from my reviews in Big Band ...
Continue Reading...Sam Bevan / Bryan Bowman / Mas Koga / Grant Levin: Hawkeye
by Bruce Lindsay
Hawkeye is the first release by a fine young quartet of musician, and a beautifully varied, eloquently played and intensely involving set of original compositions. The group, formed by bassist Sam Bevan and drummer Bryan Bowman, is based around the San Francisco area and brings together some young but talented players. Pianist Grant Levin and Japanese saxophonist/flautist Mas Koga complete the quartet. All four men contribute compositions to the album, also bringing their own ideas to the arrangements, leading to ...
Continue Reading...Brad Mehldau Highway Rider Live at Carnegie Hall
by David Miller
Brad Mehldau / The St. Paul Chamber OrchestraCarnegie HallNew York, New YorkNovember 9, 2010Zankel Hall was rife with anticipation before pianist Brad Mehldau took the stage, along with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, to debut his recently released Highway Rider (Nonesuch, 2010) live in New York, and rightly so. Highway Rider is Mehldau's first formal foray into the world of orchestral jazz, and to read the self-composed notes in the playbill, it seemed the pianist ...
Continue Reading...John McNeil and Bill McHenry: Chill Morn He Climb Jenny
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Navigating the wide avenue of American Song can be boring, because the same charts appear on album after album; but when musicians either pick little-known charts of the celebrated composers of the American Songbook, or add little-known composers to that musical tome, things get quirky, but utterly refreshing. This is exactly the case in point regarding Chill Morn He Climb Jenny, the anagrammatic title that would otherwise spell the names of thois quirky duo--trumpeter John McNeil and tenor saxophonist, Bill ...
Continue Reading...Augsburger Domsingknaben / Residenz-Kammerorchester Munchen, Reinhard Kammler: J.S. Bach: Weinachtsoratorium I-III, BWV 248
by C. Michael Bailey
Perhaps only second to Handel's Messiah is J.S. Bach's Weinachtsoratorium, BWV 248, in a list of favorite baroque Christmas offerings. This performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio took place in audience with and honor of His Holiness, Benedict XVI at the Sistine Chapel, December 4, 2009. A Munchen band, playing for a Munchen Priest, in the center of Catholic Christendom. Bach was a providential Lutheran who composed Sole Deo Gloria, no matter what Church employed him. He took ...
Continue Reading...Sebastian Liedke: To Walk In The Past
by Dan Bilawsky
Different people often have different thoughts of what a piano trio should be: some view Oscar Peterson-style groups as the archetype in this category; others, just as easily, point to Bill Evans and feel that his body of work is the alpha and omega when it comes to piano group interaction and chemistry; while younger, rock-leaning enthusiasts may turn their noses up at both of those legends, preferring the bombast-meets-jazz of The Bad Plus. No two people will have the ...
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