Jazz Articles about Jalen Baker

About Jalen Baker

Album Review

RePaved, vibraphonist and composer Jalen Baker's third album as leader of his own ensemble, is an eight-part suite that depicts in musical terms the history of Houston, Texas' historic Black neighborhoods and his family's deep connection to the city's Third Ward, which spans four generations. As is usually true of thematic music, that becomes largely irrelevant once it begins. What is of more than passing interest is that Baker composed the suite's first half-dozen movements, while the seventh ...

Radio & Podcasts

Jalen Baker, Matt Wilson's Good Trouble, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Charles Tolliver and more

by Benjamin Boddie
September 17, 2026

Today's Music--Right Now! Fantastic music by Jalen Baker, Matt Wilson's Good Trouble, Mike Catalano, Allan Harris, Dave Bass, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Yainer Horta, Joey Calveiro, The Las Vegas Boneheads, Douye, Charles Tolliver, Greg Chako, Linda Sikhakhane, Technocats, Geof Bradfield, Myra Melford, Ben Goldberg, Dana Hall, NicoleYvette, Kelly Green, Dwayne Dolphin, Reid Hoyson Project, Visions Jazz Ensemble, Takashi Matsunaga, WDR Big Band, Ulysses Owens Jr. & Generation Y, Elias Haslanger, Helen Sung Big Band, Somi, Carmen Lundy, Henry Threadgill, Vijay Iyer, Dafnis ...

Album Review

Jalen Baker: RePaved

Read "RePaved" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
September 5, 2026

Occasionally, an album comes along that shakes up your thinking about what jazz can do. Jalen Baker's RePaved might be that album. On the surface, it is an eight- part suite about Houston's historic Black neighbourhoods, particularly the 3rd Ward, where Baker's family has deep roots spanning four generations. But on closer listening, it becomes more personal. Baker is not simply documenting places disappearing under the pressure of gentrification; he is keeping their memory alive through music. Baker ...

Album Review

Jeremy Pelt: Tomorrow's Another Day

Read "Tomorrow's Another Day" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
January 7, 2025

L'avvio non è dei più incoraggianti, lambendo abbastanza pericolosamente la deriva dell'easy listening, ma poi, per fortuna, le cose migliorano e questo nuovo lavoro di Jeremy Pelt, virgulto ormai quarantottenne di certo “nuovo" jazz, riprende abbastanza convintamente la retta via. O meglio la strada maestra, perché è questo il nuovo verbo cui il trombettista californiano fa riferimento, glissando con una certa disinvoltura su tutto quanto avvenuto dopo (o attorno a) l'epoca aurea di suoi colleghi di strumento quali Clifford Brown, ...

Album Review

Jeremy Pelt: Tomorrow's Another Day

Read "Tomorrow's Another Day" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 30, 2024

Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, a force on the jazz scene for more than two decades, simply does his own thing on Tomorrow's Another Day, the twenty-fourth album as leader of his own groups, inviting any interested listeners to come on board for the ride. Pelt's thing these days apparently includes an abundance of special effects, reverb, heavy (and at times intrusive) rhythms, leavened with occasional flashes of the remarkable improviser he can be and often is. To help ...

Album Review

Jalen Baker: Be Still

by Neil Duggan
August 14, 2023

When studying to become a jazz drummer, students are often exposed to other percussion instruments in the course of their studies and sometimes that results in finding a specialty. That was the case for Jalen Baker, who started experimenting on the vibraphone and has now gone on to be one of the most compelling players around. Be Still is his second album. It follows on from his debut album, This Is Me, This Is Us (Outside in Music, 2021). He ...

Album Review

Jalen Baker: Be Still

Read "Be Still" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
August 14, 2023

Tenor saxophonist and record executive Cory Weeds presents another album in the series of releases by up-and-coming black artists, to give them a voice which might not otherwise be heard. In this case, the artist is vibraphonist Jalen Baker; he and his frequent collaborators, pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Gabriel Godoy and drummer Gavin Moolchan, run through some songs which have been both inspirational and representational to Baker as his career has developed. The opening number “T'Was" ...