Jazz Articles about Brian Landrus

About Brian Landrus

Album Review

New England Jazz Collaborative: Tributaries

Read "Tributaries" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
November 12, 2026

Tributaries segna l'esordio discografico del New England Jazz Collaborative, orchestra piuttosto poderosa (una ventina i musicisti coinvolti nell'album, inciso a Boston nel giugno 2025) con sede a Cambridge. Le atmosfere possiedono diverse tipicità proprie della letteratura di settore e relativo repertorio, peraltro lungo brani tutti originali, dovuti a Jeremy Cohen, deus ex machina del NEJC, Darryl Harper (due a testa), Matan Rubinstein e Sam Spear, che in effetti si rivelano in grado di esprimere un quid complessivo contrassegnato da alcuni ...

Album Review

Marty Ehrlich: Open Air: The Complete Saxophone Quartet Compositions Of Julius Hemphill

Read "Open Air: The Complete Saxophone Quartet Compositions Of Julius Hemphill" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 4, 2026

Julius Hemphill's saxophone quartets reveal a compositional imagination as resourceful as it is distinctive. In assembling all of Hemphill's known works for the format, reedman Marty Ehrlich brings a remarkable body of music into sharp focus, foregrounding the harmonic ingenuity and structural precision that can be obscured by extensive improvisation. Hemphill, best known as a founding member and principal composer of the World Saxophone Quartet (WSQ), wrote consistently for reed ensembles from 1977 until his death in 1995. ...

Album Review

Jason Robinson: Blue Salience: For Yusef Lateef

Read "Blue Salience: For Yusef Lateef" reviewed by Keith Flint

by Keith Flint
October 18, 2026

From a single note a song takes form. From a single seed a tree grows. Consider Yusef Lateef's own words from “Where Are The Goodies?" Spheres: Stories by Yusef Lateef (Fana Publishing, 1976), “To find out in a hurry whether the roots are where the rich dirt is, look up at the tree and see if the branches are soulful." His writing was as evocative of spirituality and human communication as it was given to compositional foundations and creative ideation. ...

Album Review

New England Jazz Collaborative: Tributaries

Read "Tributaries" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 25, 2026

Tributaries is the debut recording by the seventeen-member New England Jazz Collaborative whose origin and purpose are summed up as follows: “an artist-led non-profit collective dedicated to commissioning, presenting and documenting new music and expanding the audience for what remains a thrilling and vital musical form." The album consists of half a dozen fresh compositions by a quartet of talented composers and arrangers: NEJC founder Jeremy Cohen, Matan Rubinstein, Darryl Harper and Sam Spear, with the ensemble ably ...

Album Review

Brian Landrus: Just When You Think You Know

Read "Just When You Think You Know" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
July 7, 2026

Non si può eccellere ogni volta. Dopo il superlativo Plays Ellington & Strayhorn Brian Landrus presenta un album meno palpitante ma sempre d'alto livello. Affermato polistrumentista della timbrica grave, Landrus privilegia in questo disco l'uso di sax tenore, flauto soprano e contralto agli strumenti che l'hanno reso famoso: il sax baritono. il clarinetto basso e il flauto basso. Nei quattordici brani del disco il sax tenore è protagonista in cinque ed i flauti in quattro. Al sax baritono sono dedicati ...

Album Review

The Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra: Chronography

Read "Chronography" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 31, 2026

On Chronography, Boston-based trumpeter and composer Greg Hopkins and his 16-member Jazz Orchestra revitalize ten of the leader's never-before-recorded compositions and arrangements, most of them well-known standards from the Great American Songbook, that span more than half a century of astute and perceptive songwriting. The earliest, Willard Robison's “Old Folks," was arranged for the Buddy Rich band in 1972; the most recent, Duke Ellington's “In a Sentimental Mood," for his own orchestra in 2018. Between those dates rest ...

Album Review

Brian Landrus: Just When You Think You Know

Read "Just When You Think You Know" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 5, 2026

Brian Landrus, best known for his eloquent performances on baritone sax, shows his versatility--as player, composer and arranger--on Just When You Think You Know, his tenth album as leader, adding tenor sax, bass clarinet, flute, alto flute and bass flute to enlarge an impressive arsenal of musical weaponry. In fact, Landrus unlimbers the baritone on only three of the album's fourteen eclectic numbers--all of which he wrote and arranged. He plays tenor sax on five selections, one or another of ...