Jazz Articles about Jarrett Carter

About Jarrett Carter

Album Review

Sanifu Hall & Cosmos Dwellerz Arkestra: These Are The Times

Read "These Are The Times" reviewed by Andy Crowther

by Andy Crowther
July 21, 2026

Without paying attention to sleeve notes, you could be a fan of the Black Jazz record label and their run of funky yet deep releases of the 1970s, and miss the fact that trombonist Sanifu Al Hall Jr. both played and wrote on albums from Doug Carn, Henry Franklin, and Chester Thompson. If you like golden age hip-hop, and the classic “Luck Of Lucien" by A Tribe Called Quest, you might know it sampled “Forty Days" from Billy Brooks Windows ...

Album Review

Madre Vaca: Knights of the Round Table

Read "Knights of the Round Table" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 26, 2023

The legend of King Arthur and Camelot is depicted musically on Knights of the Round Table, the sixth album by the Florida-based eleven-member ensemble, Madre Vaca, whose themes are composed by drummer Benjamin Shorstein. While Knights is presented as a ten-part suite, there seems to be no connecting tissue aside from the names of individual works --"Arthur," “Camelot," “Galahad," “Merlin," “Guinevere" and “Lancelot" among them. True, there seems to be an over-all medieval vibe underlining Shorstein's music, ...

Album Review

Blue Muse: It Never Entered My Mind

Read "It Never Entered My Mind" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
July 26, 2021

Blue Muse, the ensemble that tenor saxophonist Sarah Lee founded, plays mainstream jazz with elegance and vigor. The group's second recording, the delightful It Never Entered My Mind, is an engaging batch of standards crackling with vibrant spontaneity which highlights both the distinctive virtuosity and the combined artistry of the musicians involved. Pianist Horace Silver's rhythmically intricate “Nutville" opens with drummer John Medico's brisk rumble leading to the effervescent main theme. Trumpeter Steve Strawley launches into an energetic ...

Album Review

Madre Vaca: The Elements

Read "The Elements" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 17, 2021

Ambitious? How about depicting musically four basic elements--fire, water, earth, wind--and doing so with only four musicians. On its fourth recording, The Elements, the guitar-led quartet Madre Vaca endeavors to do exactly that, and in roughly forty-one minutes. Each of the album's four selections was written by a member of the group: “Fire" by drummer Benjamin Shorstein; “Water" by guitarist Jarrett Carter; “Earth" by bassist Thomas Milovac; “Wind" by pianist Jonah Pierre. So how do they fare? ...

Album Review

Madre Vaca: Winterreise

Read "Winterreise" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 24, 2020

For its third recording, the Florida-based jazz octet Madre Vaca has chosen to perform music by Franz Schubert—hold it; stop right there! Music by who? Yes, that's what it says—music by none other than Franz Schubert (1797-1828), an Austrian composer of what we know as classical music who in his brief lifetime wrote more than 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies (and the well-known “Unfinished"), as well as sacred chorales, operas, and chamber, piano and incidental music. When did ...