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Tomeka Reid Quartet: 3+3
by Chris May
Jazz cello has come a long way since Fred Katz's pioneering work with Chico Hamilton in the 1950s. Back then, the instrument was looked on as a novelty turn. In 2024, while still relatively avant-garde, its presence in a lineup is less exceptional. A pivotal point was American cellist Adbul Wadud's By Myself (Bishara, 1977), an album Tomeka Reid has acknowledged as an inspiration, and which may have played a part in her transition from classical music to jazz around ...
Continue ReadingJeb Bishop Flex Quartet: Re-Collect
by John Sharpe
Trombonist Jeb Bishop doesn't have a whole slew of leadership dates to his credit in spite of being active on the scene since the early 1990s. His most high profile gigs have been as part of the Vandermark 5, and also Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet, though he also has Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra and the Steve Lacy repertory outift The Whammies on his resume. All the better then that Re-Collect, a live recording from 2015 by his Flex Quartet, ...
Continue ReadingTomeka Reid Quartet: Old New
by Ian Patterson
Tomeka Reid cut her teeth in Chicago, recording with Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell and Nicole Mitchell, but the cellist's 2016 move to New York seems to have fired her creative juices even more. The prolific Reid has appeared on nearly twenty recordings in that time, notably including the Art Ensemble of Chicago's We Are On The Edge (Pi Recordings, 2019), and also touring with the group in celebration of its fiftieth anniversary. Given the demands on Reid's time, it is ...
Continue ReadingJuan Vinuesa Jazz Quartet: Blue Shots From Chicago
by Mark Corroto
Chicago, a city of big shoulders, continues to present proof of poet Carl Sandburg's words from the poem of the same name... “Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning." Why is this? Because Chicago in 2020 remains the same as evoked in these words from 1914, “fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action." It is a city that welcomes all comers who can bring ...
Continue ReadingJason Roebke Octet: Cinema Spiral
by Giuseppe Segala
La spirale del cinema a cui Jason Roebke si riferisce in questa seconda registrazione con il suo affiatato ottetto porta l'impronta di Alfred Hitchcock, con assonanze che rimandano a Vertigo, sia nel titolo che nel tema musicale che apre il CD e lo percorre tutto, ripresentandosi in altri brani e dando un carattere fortemente unitario al lavoro. Una variazione sul tema di Bernard Herrmann, evidente nel disegno affidato al vibrafono di Jason Adasiewicz, ma pure nel clima generale del brano ...
Continue ReadingJason Roebke Octet: Cinema Spiral
by Troy Collins
The widely acclaimed collaborative nature of the contemporary Chicago jazz scene is expertly demonstrated on Cinema Spiral, the sophomore effort by double bassist Jason Roebke's all-star Octet, which continues the creative in-roads made on the unit's celebrated 2014 Delmark Records debut, High/Red/Center. Starring eight of the Windy City's most intrepid improvisers, the ensemble features the muscular frontline of cornetist Josh Berman, trombonist Jeb Bishop, alto saxophonist Greg Ward, tenor saxophonist Keefe Jackson, and bass clarinetist Jason Stein. Vibraphonist ...
Continue ReadingJason Roebke Octet: Cinema Spiral
by Mark Corroto
If entropy is a scientific theory that describes how all things in nature tend towards a gradual decline and disorder, then Jason Roebke's Octet is the anti-entropy. His second octet release Cinema Spiral and the previous High/Red/Center (Delmark, 2014) make order out of the impression of chaos. Such is the enticement of jazz. It always has been. Ever since Louis Armstrong diverted from the sheet music, great jazz musicians, improvisers, leave the score behind, or use ...
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