Jazz Articles about Daryl Johns

About Daryl Johns

Album Review

Pat Metheny's Side Eye ensemble surfaced in 2016. Its mission was to introduce a younger set of musicians to his music. It began as an organ trio, though the piano and synths--and much more--have since found their place in the unit. Side Eye VI.IV, NYC (Modern Recordings, 2021) introduced the group in a live setting, dishing up a modern take on the time-tested organ trio format. Metheny can always be counted on for creating an atmosphere of positivity, ...

Album Review

Pat Metheny: Side-Eye III+

Read "Side-Eye III+" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
March 16, 2026

Pat Metheny occupies a singular place in jazz history. With over 20 million records sold, three gold albums, and 20 Grammy Awards across 10 different categories--a record unmatched by any other artist--he has achieved a level of crossover popularity rarely seen in jazz. An NEA Jazz Master and DownBeat Hall of Fame inductee, he is widely regarded as one of the finest jazz guitarists of his generation. Like Thelonious Monk, he has always gone his own way, as demonstrated by ...

Liner Notes

Wallace Roney: Understanding

by John Kelman
April 26, 2023

With the concept of mentoring an increasingly forgotten part of how young, up-and-coming musicians cut their teeth--learning from older, more experienced musicians before heading out into the world as leaders--the jazz world needs more people like Wallace Roney. One look at every record the trumpeter has made since signing with HighNote in 2004, with Prototype the first of seven albums culminating in the album you're now holding in your hands, and it's clear that Roney takes the concept of mentoring ...

Album Review

Meredith d'Ambrosio: Sometime Ago

Read "Sometime Ago" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
February 20, 2023

Dopo dieci anni di silenzio discografico è un gran piacere ascoltare un nuovo album della cantante di Boston, il diciassettesimo per la Sunnyside, con cui pubblica dalla metà degli anni ottanta, qualche anno dopo il suo debutto. Più che cantante Meredith preferisce definirsi “song stylist" e tale resta all'età di 81 anni, senza perdere un grammo di classe interpretativa e pregevole essenzialità. Con l'età il timbro s'è irrobustito, conferendo nuove ombreggiature al suo eloquio ma intonazione e ...

Album Review

Immanuel Wilkins: The 7th Hand

Read "The 7th Hand" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
January 16, 2022

That we are free to think saxophone firebrand Immanuel Wilkins' 2020 Blue Note debut Omega served as a sign of hope amid a particularly hopeless year puts an awful lot of weight on the shoulders of a 25-year-old and, beyond doubt, colors the fate of The 7th Hand. Humbly and characteristically, Wilkins and company meet the challenge head-on. Searching for nothingness in a culture of excess, “Lift," the seventh and closing exhortation to empathy that guides The 7th ...

Album Review

Immanuel Wilkins: The 7th Hand

Read "The 7th Hand" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
January 10, 2022

Dopo l'acclamato debutto di Omega Immanuel Wilkins disegna un altro avvincente affresco, confermando l'intento a elaborare nuovi percorsi musicali inglobando la tradizione. Con lui ritroviamo i giovani partner del suo quartetto (Micah Thomas al pianoforte, Daryl Johns al contrabbasso e Kweku Sumbry alla batteria) più la bravissima flautista Elena Pinderhughes (già con Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah e Ambrose Akinmusire) e l'ensemble di percussioni Farafina Kan. Mentre conferma il magistrale eloquio strumentale con lunghi, intensi ...

Album Review

Immanuel Wilkins: Omega

by Paul Rauch
September 3, 2020

At the moment Omega, the debut solo album of young alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, was released on Blue Note in May 2020, America was ablaze with the fight for justice following the murder by police of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The sessions for the album were recorded prior to the event that propelled the Black Lives Matter movement, and spread to the streets in demand for racial justice like no other time in American history. Yet the album is an ...