Jazz Articles about Jim Vivian

About Jim Vivian

Album Review

Brian Dickinson & the Penderecki String Quartet: October Songs

Read "October Songs" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 14, 2026

Contemporary jazz meets classical chamber music (with rather mixed results) on October Songs, the 2026 recording by Canadian pianist and composer Brian Dickinson and his trio who share center stage with the Ontario-based Penderecki String Quartet. There are at least two ways to appraise this meticulously planned and well-meaning partnership. On the one hand, this is lovely music, most of which was skillfully written and all deftly arranged by Dickinson; on the other, the album's jazz component is ...

Liner Notes

Kevin Goss: Gratitude

by Kevin Goss
July 4, 2025

As I approached the “big five-oh," I started doing some thinking about how much I have to be grateful for: a supportive family, meaningful friendships, and music. I wasn't supposed to make it to the “big oh-five," but I beat the odds and, in the years since, it is my family, friends, and music that have made my life better, along with a couple of goofy dogs. “Ted's Kick" is a boogaloo blues with a bridge. I wrote ...

Album Review

The David Restivo Trio: Arancina

Read "Arancina" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 24, 2021

The David Restivo Trio's Arancina is all about “home," whether it is pianist Restivo's ancestral home in Sicily, projected with a beautifully-painted homage on his four-part “Sicilian Suite," or his brief home in Nova Scotia with “Raven's Wing," inspired by the dark birds soaring over the Northumberland Strait which separates Nova Scotia from Prince Edward Island. Then there is Restivo's coming home to his bebop roots with “It's You Or No One," the Jules Styne-Sammy Can song from the 1948 ...