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Billy Hart: Just
by Jack Kenny
"Just" is an elegant album calculated to please. More than any earlier releases on ECM, it is Billy Hart's album, The quartet has been working together for over twenty years and has rightly morphed from a collective to the one steered by Hart. The drummer has supplied his sinewy rhythmic mastery to albums across the years with Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner and Stan Getz. Here, Hart is both the strongest voice, the innovator and the driver ...
Continue ReadingRandy Ingram: Aries Dance
by John Chacona
No one would suggest that a car stereo in a rush-hour traffic jam is an ideal environment to evaluate a recording--or even to squeeze much enjoyment out of one. Yet even in this setting the graceful, gliding waltz that opens Randy Ingram's Aries Dance immediately dispelled the frustration and tension of the highway like an offshore breeze drives away the midsummer heat. As traffic crept toward Columbus, Ohio at the Polaris Parkway exit, a quick check of the title: it ...
Continue ReadingBrian Landrus: Plays Ellington & Strayhorn
by Angelo Leonardi
In questo nuovo album, Brian Landrus esalta la magniloquenza della sua timbrica grave con l'ampia gamma di strumenti che usa: non solo i prediletti sax baritono e clarinetto basso ma sax basso, flauto basso, flauto contralto, clarinetto contralto, ottavino e vari altri. La scelta del celeberrimo songbook di Duke Ellington e Billy Strayhorn è piuttosto insidiosa, per la difficoltà di trovare una chiave di lettura originale in un repertorio abusato, ma Landrus ha trovato la sua via: «Ascoltando questi ...
Continue ReadingBrian Landrus: Plays Ellington & Strayhorn
by Jack Bowers
When gathering material for a new recording, one time-honored rule of thumb is that it is hard to stray too far off course when revisiting the musical handiwork of renowned composer Duke Ellington and/or the Duke's virtuosic alter ego, Billy Strayhorn--even if one chooses to lead with an Ellington theme as relatively unknown as “Agra" from 1967's Far East Suite, which baritone saxophonist Brian Landrus does on Plays Ellington & Strayhorn, a graceful and stylish quartet date that also encompasses ...
Continue ReadingNoah Haidu: Standards II
by Pierre Giroux
On Standards II, pianist Noah Haidu embarks on a captivating journey through the jazz tradition, accompanied by bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart. The seven tracks were recorded at the Van Gelder studio. The album starts with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow." This track, famously sung by Judy Garland in the 1939 film “Wizard of Oz," became her signature song. The opening, delivered with finesse by Hart, sets the stage for Haidu to build the number from the ground up, ...
Continue ReadingBill O'Connell: Live In Montauk
by Richard J Salvucci
A rhythm section which includes Santi Debriano and Billy Hart is nothing if not part of a potential dream band. In Craig Handy, one finds a post-bop saxophonist who played with virtually everyone worth hearing over the last third of the twentieth century. For a variety of reasons pianist Bill O'Connell may be a little less well known outside the New York City metropolitan area, but his signal contributions to Latin jazz with Dave Valentin, Jerry Gonzalez and Mongo Santamaria ...
Continue ReadingBill O'Connell: Live In Montauk
by Jack Bowers
After years of gigging in the New York City area, while honing his credentials as a first-call contemporary jazz pianist, Bill O'Connell and his family moved to Montauk, the easternmost point on Long Island, where he expressed his appreciation of the area's many wonders by recording this impressive album at the celebrated Gosman's Dock, during the annual Hamptons Jazz Festival in August 2021. It is essentially a quartet date with trumpeter Randy Brecker sitting in on two numbers, ...
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