Jazz Articles about Bill Smith

About Bill Smith

Album Review

Viktorija Gečytė & Gene Perla: Mother

Read "Mother" reviewed by Ieva Pakalniškytė

by Ieva Pakalniškytė
March 31, 2026

Sometimes the music does not so much ask to be heard as it quietly draws you in. Listening to Viktorija Gečytė and Gene Perla's album Mother feels like slipping into a warm, half-remembered moment. The atmosphere is unhurried, softly lit, unfolding somewhere between memory and the present. Structured as a six-composition album, it echoes the aesthetic world of the Great American Songbook. Carried by voice, swing, and the pleasure of listening, it remains firmly rooted in tradition without feeling merely retrospective or ...

Album Review

Tom Collier: Impulsive Illuminations

Read "Impulsive Illuminations" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 28, 2016

Vibraphonist Tom Collier offers up something quite different from his previous Origin Records CDs, where he covered the jazz standards like John Coltrane's “Giant Steps; Miles Davis' “So What," and some seemingly unlikely pop hits: The Rolling Stones “What a Shame" and Brian Wilson's “God Only Knows," alongside his own always engaging compositions. With Impulsive Illuminations, the thirty year University of Washington educator (now retired) explores the world of improvisation with pianist Richard Karpen, in the trio mode, with five ...

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Album Review

Bill Smith: Folk Jazz

Read "Folk Jazz" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
June 25, 2003

Those few who recognize Bill Smith probably remember the recordings he made with the Dave Brubeck quartet replacing Paul Desmond in the horn chair (and fewer still have probably actually heard these recordings.) Yet the presence of West Coast luminaries like Jim Hall, Monty Budwig, and Shelley Manne certainly offers the possibility of a little-heard West Coast gem in this 1959 recording. However, the interesting concept that inspires Folk Jazz, essentially jazz treatments of folk tunes, never actually turns into ...