Jazz Articles about Dana Hall

About Dana Hall

Album Review

Geof Bradfield, co-founder of Calligram Records along with Chad McCullough, introduces a compelling new voice from Chicago's ever-fertile jazz scene. Climbing, the debut recording by guitarist Joshua Archiron, pairs the young bandleader with a seasoned and deeply attuned rhythm section: Bradfield on tenor saxophone, bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Dana Hall. Archiron's program, seven originals plus a well-chosen standard, unfolds with striking assurance. The quartet navigates the material with a supple, unforced cohesion that belies the guitarist's newcomer ...

Album Review

PlainsPeak: Someone to Someone

Read "Someone to Someone" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 26, 2025

Jon Irabagon's PlainsPeak delivers a soulful homecoming via a love letter to Chicago with its debut, Someone to Someone. Ditching the tech-heavy sprawl of his earlier work like Server Farm (Irabbagast, 2025), the leader returns to Chicago's gritty roots with a lean acoustic quartet that is all heart and sly wit. Irabagon, a Chicago-born saxophonist and winner of the Thelonious Monk Competition, leads with his alto's warm expressive tone. He is joined by trumpeter Russ Johnson, a longtime ...

Album Review

Jon Irabagon / PlainsPeak: Someone to Someone

Read "Someone to Someone" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
August 15, 2025

Jon Irabagon is a musician whose complexity is both exhilarating and daunting. His restless energy, deep self-reflection, remarkable achievements and sharp intellect combine to create a figure who constantly provokes questions--about music, originality and the very nature of artistic expression. In 2011, Irabagon undertook a bold experiment: With Mostly Other People Do The Killing, he recorded Blue (Hot Cup, 2014), a note-for-note recreation of Miles Davis's iconic Kind of Blue (Columbia Records, 1959). This endeavor recalls Gus Van ...

Album Review

Jimmy Farace: Hours Fly, Flowers Die

Read "Hours Fly, Flowers Die" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
August 2, 2025

There have been many recordings of saxophones backed by string sections since Charlie Parker experimented with the idea many years ago. The majority of those have featured tenor or alto sax players. However, on his debut album, Jimmy Farace demonstrates how the baritone sax can excel beautifully in this format. The full instrumental lineup on this set has Farace in front of a quintet, which also includes guitar and piano, meeting up with the KAIA String Quartet. The ...

Album Review

Rodney Whitaker: Mosaic: The Music of Gregg Hill

Read "Mosaic: The Music of Gregg Hill" reviewed by Paul Rauch

by Paul Rauch
February 20, 2025

In their fourth collaboration on Origin Records, bassist and bandleader Rodney Whitaker and Central Michigan composer Gregg Hill strike gold once again, backed by a formidable gathering of musicians. Hill's music has experienced a surge in interest due to his prolific releases on Origin, which have featured musicians in and around the impressive jazz faculty roster at Michigan State University, a program with Whitaker at the helm. Hill's compositions have a notable sound uniquely tied to both urban ...

Liner Notes

Rodney Whitaker: Mosaic: The Music of Gregg Hill

by Michael Dease
February 15, 2025

At just fifty-six years young, Rodney Whitaker has cemented his legendary status as a sought-after bassist extraordinaire and, arguably the pre-eminent jazz educator of his generation. The Detroit, Michigan native, recently elected to the hallowed ranks of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, that includes such innovators as Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., continues to firmly establish himself as a superb interpreter of original music, notably through his fruitful association with composer Gregg Hill. Mosaic is ...

Album Review

Julia Danielle: Julia Danielle

Read "Julia Danielle" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
December 21, 2024

Julia Danielle is a young Chicago-based singer whose debut album shows considerable promise. Aside from a limpid contralto voice, good time, and a dead-on resemblance in profile to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (it cannot hurt), she is the epitome of effortlessness and good taste in her approach to the Great American Songbook. One ultimately suspects she will find her métier singing in the intimate setting of a small room backed precisely by the sympathetic support of the small band she ...