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Dan Blake: Da Fé
by Mike Jurkovic
It's comforting to know that saxophonist Dan Blake hasn't taken Thoreau's inconvenient truth that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation" to heart. Instead, as his Da Fé (translated: of faith) and his apprenticeships with Anthony Braxton} and {{Julian Lage prove succinctly, Blake intends to bring the music, and the consciousness of our fragility within it, to the fore, in hopes the listener can shake the malaise too and pick up the call for action. Blake escorts his ...
Continue ReadingThana Alexa: ONA
by Angelo Leonardi
Ci giunge con un po' di ritardo questo secondo disco della talentuosa vocalist e compositrice Thana Alexa, ma va assolutamente considerato. Anche questo, come già il debutto Ode to Heroes, è un tributo: dalle figure musicali che l'hanno influenzata siamo passati a una celebrazione del genere femminile e al ruolo—spesso sottovalutato—che svolgono nel mondo. Nata a New York da famiglia croata, Thana è tornata nell'infanzia in Croazia dov'è rimasta per completare i suoi studi. Successivamente si è ...
Continue ReadingDan Blake: Da Fé
by Mark Corroto
Saxophonist-composer Dan Blake's Da Fé ("of faith"), a meditation on our world in crisis, may have taken, as a starting point, the lyrics to Lou Reed's “Busload Of Faith" from the über-cynical New York (Sire, 1989) recording, “You can depend on cruelty / crudity of thought and sound / You can depend on the worst always happening / you need a busload of faith to get by." What with global warming, income disparity, hunger, and homelessness, the gentle folk of ...
Continue ReadingAllegra Levy: Lose My Number
by Jerome Wilson
Allegra Levy is a young singer who has made a reputation for herself through her witty songwriting and performing. She has sung a lot of her own songs on previous releases but on this one, she changes things slightly by writing her own lyrics to the music of trumpet player John McNeil. McNeil was Levy's mentor at the New England Conservatory and she complements his slightly off-balance tunes with lyrics that range from the dark and sardonic to ...
Continue ReadingNicole Zuraitis: All Wandering Hearts
by Geno Thackara
Nicole Zuraitis has a heart full of soul and a voice full of sunshine. She's got a mix of things on her mind with her fourth album, everyday themes and weighty matters alike, and yet they ultimately come out sounding exuberant in her hands. The fundamental optimism is one key asset of All Wandering Hearts, even if her variety of jazzy coffee-shop balladry is no less eloquent in the spots when things get more somber. The too-spirited-for-AOR “Make ...
Continue ReadingThana Alexa: ONA
by Doug Collette
A departure from Thana Alexa's first album Ode to Heroes (Harmonia Mundi/Jazz Village, 2015), ONA is also rooted in jazz, but it showcases Alexa's use of her voice as both a lyrical and experimental instrument. Commencing immediately on the title tune, this mostly original material features arrangements in various combinations of atmospheric, electronic soundscapes and exotic instrumental textures, complementing a voice which enchants as often through its feather-light air as its full-throated tones. Co-produced with master drummer Antonio Sanchez--with whom ...
Continue ReadingDana Sandler: I Never Saw Another Butterfly
by C. Michael Bailey
Tender is that memory nearly lost. Theresienstadt was a concentration camp and ghetto established by the German Schutzstaffel during World War II in the Bohemian fortress town of Terezín. Theresienstadt had two purposes: it was a coordinating center ahead of the extermination camps, and an erstwhile retirement community for elderly and prominent Jews intended to mislead their respective communities about German intentions. Camp conditions were engineered to hasten the death of its prisoners through inadequate diet and overwork, while the ...
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