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Mark Winkler: Hold On
by Pierre Giroux
Throughout his extensive career, Mark Winkler has been a steadfast presence on the Los Angeles jazz scene, earning a reputation as one of the most versatile and captivating vocalists in contemporary jazz. With Hold On, his 22nd album, Winkler continues to demonstrate that artistic growth and creative curiosity remain central to his work. While many artists with such a prolific discography might be tempted to rest on their laurels, Winkler continues to push forward, creating new material and thoughtfully reimagining ...
Continue ReadingCatina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz: Lado B Brazilian Project 2
by Pierre Giroux
Catina DeLuna and Otmaro Ruíz have once again teamed up to explore the rich tapestry of Brazilian music in Lado B Brazilian Project 2. As a follow-up to their earlier exploration of this repertoire, this album sees the duo delve even deeper into Brazil's lyrical and melodic treasures, producing results that are both innovative and rooted in tradition. They have assembled a stellar band to perform Ruíz's arrangements, including two carry-overs from their first edition: guitarist Larry Koonse and bassist ...
Continue ReadingCatina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz: Lado B Brazilian Project 2
by Katchie Cartwright
In a time of disembodied digital-only releases, luxuriously well-crafted albums like Catina DeLuna and Otmaro Ruiz's Lado B Brazilian Project 2, with physical disk, album notes, lyric translations and evocative graphics, can really be the balm. The project was born in 2015 with the release of Lado B Brazilian Project (Self Produced), which received a Grammy nomination in 2016. The idea was to interpret what we might call Great Brazilian Songbook--classics by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chico Buarque, Dorival ...
Continue ReadingCharles Chen: Building Characters
by Jack Bowers
San Francisco-based pianist and educator Charles Chen returns with Building Characters, his second recording in as many years, and as on his debut album, Charles, Play! (Cellar Music, 2024), he is backed by an all-star supporting cast that includes a front line of trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxophonists Bob Sheppard and Lawrence Feldman. They bolster a sharp and powerful rhythm section consisting of bassist Mike Richmond and drummer Adam Nussbaum. Missing are the members of Chen's quartet ...
Continue ReadingMark Masters Ensemble: Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance!
by Jack Bowers
In 2023-24, the celebrated arranger Mark Masters led his superb southern California-based ensemble into studios to record a pair of tribute albums. The first, Sam Rivers 100, was dedicated to the music of the late saxophonist on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth; the second, Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance!, to that of another renowned saxophonist, Billy Harper, who is not only very much alive at age eighty-two but serves as guest soloist on both recordings. Unlike ...
Continue ReadingJim Doherty: Jim Doherty's Spondance
by Ian Patterson
Jim Doherty never lacked ambition, but a suite for jazz ballet or even jazz dance was always going to be a difficult sell in '80s Ireland. All was not lost for the pianist and composer, however. A few strings pulled here and there saw Doherty and his long- term collaborator, Louis Stewart decamp to Los Angeles, where they spent two days with top session musicians. One day of rehearsals and another in the recording studio resulted in Spondance, a jazz ...
Continue ReadingPeter Erskine: Vienna to Hollywood: Impressions of E.W. Korngold & Max Steiner
by Jack Bowers
From Vienna to Hollywood is versatile drummer Peter Erskine's ardent homage to the (mostly) film music of the renowned Academy Award-winning Viennese composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner, who wrote some of filmdom's most memorable themes during Hollywood's Golden Age in the decades from 1930 to 1960. To transpose their film scores to the jazz genre, Erskine uses a talented group of performers from Vienna's JAM Music Lab University (where he serves as artist-in-residence), supplanted on two numbers by ...
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