Jazz Articles about Herlin Riley

About Herlin Riley

Album Review

On her first album in five years, trumpeter Bria Skonberg returns with a new sense of maturity and purpose in her music. She continues her usual style of mixing traditional jazz and soulful vocals with classic jazz and rock motifs, but this outing feels more confident than previous albums. Two changes in her life probably contributed to this. She moved to New Orleans, becoming part of that city's vast music scene, and she became a parent for the first time. ...

Album Review

Mike Clement: Hittin' It

Read "Hittin' It" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 17, 2024

Mike Clement makes no bones about his love for the classic organ trio configuration. The Canadian-born, New Orleans-based guitarist uses his liner statement to praise the format and namecheck a handful of his legendary six-string forebears who've made their mark in said domain (i.e. Pat Martino, George Benson, Grant Green), and the music he presents on Hittin' It offers all of the good charms associated with this type of combo. Joining forces with organist John Lee and ...

Album Review

Dr John: Things Happen That Way

Read "Things Happen That Way" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
October 4, 2022

Interviewing the late Dr John aka The Night Tripper aka Dr John Creaux aka Mac Rebennack was a pleasure. Witty, erudite and b.s. free, he was reliably good copy. On one occasion he was an hour late and obviously, totally and spectacularly off his face. “If I nod out," he said, “kick me on the shin." The doctor was in... and out. Things Happen That Way has turned out to be Dr John's last recorded studio album, ...

Album Review

Clifford Lamb: Blues & Hues New Orleans

Read "Blues & Hues New Orleans" reviewed by Kyle Simpler

by Kyle Simpler
July 24, 2021

There are quite a few cities in the world that have an important musical legacy, and in many cases, the city's musical history might be one of the first things people associate with it. Take New Orleans. Commonly known as the birthplace of jazz, it's hard to imagine New Orleans without conjuring up brass bands, jazz clubs and juke joints. San Francisco-based pianist Clifford Lamb explores New Orleans' musical and cultural aspects with Blues & Hues New Orleans by offering ...

Album Review

Yohan Giaume: Whisper of a Shadow

Read "Whisper of a Shadow" reviewed by Jim Worsley

by Jim Worsley
March 5, 2021

Collaborations are quite common projects in the jazz world, and in most forms of music, for that matter. Collaborations, however, are slightly more rare when a modern day composer's album is in conjunction with a composer from the nineteenth century. Such is the case with the works of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) melding with composer and trumpeter Yohan Giaume. Giaume has had a deep connection, both musically and intellectually, with Gottschalk for many years. Gottschalk's world travels, influences, and notable ...

Reassessing

Spodie's Back

by Jim Trageser
April 20, 2020

Still a teenager when signed to Quincy Jones' Warner Bros. subsidiary, Qwest, trumpeter Derrick Shezbie was nonetheless a veteran on this debut as leader--having been playing in the traditionalist Rebirth Brass Band for several years already. Produced by fellow Crescent City native Delfeayo Marsalis, “Spodie's Back" is a much more modernistic outing than anything he would have tackled in Rebirth. But unlike the throwback neo-bop so popular with other young jazz lions in the 1990s, this is more ...

Album Review

Herlin Riley: Perpetual Optimism

Read "Perpetual Optimism" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
March 28, 2019

Herlin Riley, a drummer from New Orleans, is a member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, led by Wynton Marsalis. Indeed, he played a large part in developing the drum parts for the Pulitzer Prize-winning album by Marsalis, Blood on the Fields (Columbia, 1997). On his own album, Riley leads a mainstream quintet playing five of his own numbers, Gene de Paul's lovely ballad “You Don't What Love Is," Victor Young's “Stella By Starlight," Ellis Marsalis' “Twelve's ...