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Harold Mabern: Mabern Plays Mabern
by Mike Jurkovic
A tad more subdued than the barn-burning The Iron Man: Live At Smoke (Smoke Sessions Records, 2019), Mabern Plays Mabern still manages to jump full throttle from where that defining recording left us, with a lush, lyrical intensity and a vital, legacy-culling energy which plays as an exquisite coda to the pianist's long, outstanding career. Alive with the same stylist's intuition and unbridled spirit which found him cutting through the ranks with such contemporaries as Charles Lloyd and ...
Continue ReadingThe New York All-Stars: Live Encounter
by Chris May
Some things live forever and take-no-quarter hard bop is one of them... If you time travelled back to New York City circa 1958 and wandered into the Half Note or Five Spot, Live Encounter contains the sort of music you might have heard. Tough, emotionally-rich jazz with no-fuss head arrangements, extrovert horn solos and a propulsive rhythm section. The album, recorded at London's Pizza Express Jazz Club in 2018, will appeal to anyone who keeps their Hank Mobley and Tina ...
Continue ReadingEric Alexander: With Strings
by Jack Bowers
To paraphrase Cole Porter: “Bird did it, Chet did it... even many vocalists I bet did it..." And now tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander did it--recorded an album with strings, that is. This represents quite a departure for Alexander who is widely known as one of the more emotive and resourceful improvisers on the scene; but so it was too for Charlie Parker, the foremost architect and unquestioned sovereign of the bop movement who was the first post-Swing Era superstar to ...
Continue ReadingEric Alexander: Leap of Faith
by Angelo Leonardi
Eric Alexander è uno dei massimi tenoristi della sua generazione. In oltre quaranta dischi da leader e un centinaio di collaborazioni, ha evidenziato piena adesione al modern mainstream, privilegiando l'esibizione in quartetti o quintetti con la tipica sezione ritmica comprendente un pianista (spesso il suo mentore Harold Mabern) o talvolta un chitarrista (Pat Martino o Peter Bernstein). Anche la relazione coi partner s'è dimostrata stabile, confermando in molti album John Webber o Nat Reeves al contrabbasso e Joe Farnsworth alla ...
Continue ReadingEric Alexander, Steve Davis, John Swana and the Philly All-Stars: Chris’ Jazz Cafe
by Victor L. Schermer
Eric Alexander, Steve Davis, John Swana and the Philly All-Stars Chris' Jazz Café Philadelphia, PA February 22, 2020 This first set on the second night of a two night stand with a packed house featured three superb and well-known hard bop masters backed by a local rhythm section called the Philly All-Stars (a young Joe Block on piano, seasoned and adaptable Mike Boone on bass, and much in demand Sonny Fortune alumnus ...
Continue ReadingIn The Moment
by David A. Orthmann
The trail of splendid hard bop influenced recordings extends well beyond the genre's heyday of the 1950s and '60s. A case in point is trumpeter John Swana's appropriately titled In The Moment. The 1996 release on the Criss Cross Jazz imprint merits the exalted status of its celebrated predecessors. Captured in a one-day studio session, despite the familiar stylistic lineage it sounds fresh, spontaneous and unsullied. A sextet of intrepid, strong-willed individuals fully commit themselves to a program of compelling ...
Continue ReadingEric Alexander, Tristano and Nat Cole Centennials & Ellingtonia
by Marc Cohn
Tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander appeared in Baton Rouge Tuesday, November 19th @ the Manship Theatre, downtown Baton Rouge. So we warmed you up for his visit with his trio and quartet work, as well as a sideman with Mike LeDonne on the B-3 and pianist Junior Mance (knee deep in the blues). There's also our last centennial feature for Lennie Tristano with Lee Konitz from 1949, a bit of Ellingtonia (new Bill Frisell and Rodney Whitaker as well as Duke ...
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