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Blue Notes We Missed

by Patrick Burnette
A lot of 2020 was spent in the fetal position, so it's not surprising some interesting jazz releases passed us by. This episode the boys check out four Blue Note releases from that memorable year, all of which we like pretty gosh darn well. So at least there's something from 2020 we like. Pop matters wallows in eighties nostalgia, but what did you expect?Playlist Discussion of Joel Ross's album Who Are You? (Blue Note) 11:30 Discussion of Artemis' ...
Continue ReadingJason Palmer: The Concert: 12 Musings for Isabella

by Angelo Leonardi
Formatosi sui modelli dell'hard bop e di grandi trombettisti come Clifford Brown e Booker Little, il quarantenne Jason Palmer pubblica un secondo disco per la Giant Step Arts, dopo Rhyme and Reason del 2018. Quella di Jimmy e Dena Katz è molto più di un'etichetta ma una coraggiosa organizzazione no-profit che sostiene i musicisti lasciando loro piena libertà. Mentre sono confermati il sassofonista Mark Turner e il batterista Kendrick Scott, il quartetto del precedente lavoro si amplia al ...
Continue ReadingRob Mazurek / Exploding Star Orchestra: Dimensional Stardust

by Karl Ackermann
Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist Rob Mazurek has made his Exploding Star Orchestra the centerpiece of his larger groups. In this formation, he finds ample room to channel his disparate influences such as Sun Ra and Bill Dixon, and the distinctions he's absorbed as a global citizen. On Dimensional Stardust Mazurek and a dozen collaborators present an energetic, always changeable, genre-less mélange of styles held together by imagination and daring. The imposing Exploding Star Orchestra includes flautist Nicole ...
Continue ReadingJason Palmer: The Concert: 12 Musings for Isabella

by Jerome Wilson
On March 18, 1990, two thieves went into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and made off with thirteen works of art, paintings and drawings by masters such as Rembrandt, Degas and Vermeer plus a couple of antique artifacts. To this day, the works have never been recovered and the museum still keeps the empty frames that held them on its walls. One day trumpeter Jason Palmer visited the museum and noticed the empty frames. He eventually learned the ...
Continue ReadingJason Palmer: The Concert: 12 Musings for Isabella

by Doug Hall
As infamous as the 1990 heist of thirteen works of art from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was, an approach to address the void has not been pursued artistically. Trumpeter Jason Palmer's release The Concert: 12 Musings for Isabella" has taken on the challenge of composing original interpretations of these paintings and several other fine art objects. Palmer describes his reaction to the vacant frames left on the wall at the Gardner as empty forms." With the 30th anniversary of ...
Continue ReadingMelissa Aldana: Visions

by Serena Antinucci
L'ultimo progetto della sassofonista cilena Melissa Aldana, governato da invasioni e tensioni musicali, è il ritratto schietto della vita nel suo continuo divenire, fatto di stacchi improvvisi, passi indietro e sguardi critici sulla realtà. In Visions (Motéma Music, 2019) ci sono architetture sonore difficili da verbalizzare e, a volte, le parole scompaiono timidamente sommerse dai suoni. Gli undici brani del disco sono il risultato di un profondo studio, di una vitalità trascinante, a volte mista al dolore. Aldana, ...
Continue ReadingJure Pukl: Broken Circles

by Friedrich Kunzmann
Slovenian tenor saxophonist Jure Pukl follows up his quartet outings Hybrid (Whirlwind Recordings 2017) and Doubtless (Whirlwind Recordings 2018) with an album that signals a clear change of direction. On Broken Circles Pukl swaps his saxophonist wife Melissa Aldana for Joel Ross on vibraphone and adds guitarist Charles Altura for some lyrical comping, on top of a well-versed rhythm section. As a direct result, harmony and flow arise more implicitly, giving Pukl the ideal environment to perform long stretches of ...
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