Jazz Articles about John Raymond

About John Raymond

Album Review

Sean Imboden Large Ensemble: Communal Heart

Read "Communal Heart" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 17, 2026

Communal Heart is the first album by saxophonist and composer Sean Imboden's superb Indiana-based Large Ensemble, recorded about a year before his second recording, Uncharted Realms (Self Produced, 2026). As before, all the compositions and arrangements are Imboden's, while the personnel in the eighteen-member orchestra remains virtually intact. If there is a difference between the two, it is that Imboden's themes are even more intriguing and intense the first time around, which is saying a lot, as Uncharted ...

Album Review

Sean Imboden: Communal Heart

Read "Communal Heart" reviewed by Dean Nardi

by Dean Nardi
June 8, 2025

Sean Imboden's Large Ensemble Has a Communal Heart Sean Imboden was bitten by the big band bug early on. It is understandable. Both his parents were musicians, and his father taught him to play clarinet when he was in sixth grade. As a teenager, besides playing in middle school and high school bands, he sometimes sat in on gigs with his father's ensemble. After college, he moved to New York City and became involved with the touring Broadway show circuit, ...

Liner Notes

Steve Allee: Naptown Sound

by Steve Allee
May 8, 2025

Submitted on behalf of Kyle Long, Producer/Host at WFYI in Indianapolis.If you ask the average music fan to name the greatest jazz cities in America, it's unlikely that Indianapolis would top their list. That's a shame, as those familiar with the city's history know better. They see the unique fingerprints of Indianapolis musicians across the broad timeline of jazz. In all fairness, Indianapolis, or Naptown as we locals affectionately call it, doesn't have the unrivaled depth ...

Album Review

Buselli / Wallarab Jazz Orchestra: The Gennett Suite

Read "The Gennett Suite" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 6, 2023

This is where music for mass consumption--recorded music--started, in Richmond, Indiana, in the 1920s, in a piano factory by the railroad tracks in a glacier-carved gorge. Established in 1887, in the beginning Starr Pianos' bread and butter was pianos, but they branched out to selling other instruments and eventually photographs and records--their own records, recorded in the piano factory, taking breaks in the process when a train came by. At first, they called their recording side of the business Starr ...

Album Review

Kind Folk: Head Towards The Center

Read "Head Towards The Center" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
July 3, 2022

Kind Folk is a quartet consisting of trumpeter John Raymond, alto saxophonist Alex LoRe, bassist Noam Wiesenberg and drummer Colin Stranahan. They recorded their first album in 2018, then went their separate ways for various reasons. They finally reconnected in June 2021 and came up with the simmering blend of jazz, rock and folk sensibilities that makes up this album. Generally, there is a subdued but close-knit feel to this music. Tracks such as “Mantrois" and “Around, Forever" ...

Album Review

Zacc Harris Group: Small Wonders

Read "Small Wonders" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
October 10, 2021

Accompanied by the hugely conversant John Raymond on trumpet and flugelhorn, saxophonist Brandon Wozniak, Expressionism-steeped pianist Bryan Nichols and the fluid viscosity of rhythm brothers bassist Chris Bates and drummer JT Bates, Zacc Harris—whose tonal voyage could be immediately likened to that of John Scofield (if only Harris didn't harken and manage all his influences so damn well)—creates on Small Wonders a very lucid, warm and easy vibe one cannot help being explicably drawn to. It is a vibe many ...

Album Review

Zacc Harris Group: Small Wonders

Read "Small Wonders" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
September 16, 2021

There is a theme of currents to the music of Small Wonders, although it is not stated in the titles. Minneapolis guitarist Zacc Harris pours the music from this album into your ears, metaphorically speaking. At times it is a cascade, in other places just a trickle. Either way, listeners are encouraged to float along, and going with the flow is a natural reaction to this music. Small Wonders is the second release by the Zacc Harris Group, following The ...