Home » Jazz Articles » Kenny Washington
Jazz Articles about Kenny Washington
Samara Joy: Linger Awhile [Deluxe Edition]
![Read "Linger Awhile [Deluxe Edition]" reviewed by Dave Linn](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/4aca39fcbcc0e53e25b70ee8a8f1cb11.jpg)
by Dave Linn
Samara Joy's meteoric rise since graduating from High School has been well documented. As a college junior, she filmed herself singing Ella Fitzgerald's “Take Love Easy" accompanied by one of her professors, pianist Pete Malinverni. The video went viral, garnering over one million views. She then put up a GoFundMe page, quickly reaching the $8,000 goal to record her debut album Samara Joy (Whirlwind, 2021). A year later, Verve Records announced her signing and the release of her label debut ...
Continue ReadingNick Green: Green On The Scene
by Pierre Giroux
Nick Green's latest release, Green On The Scene, is a captivating musical journey which combines masterful instrumentation, intricate compositions and a profound sense of improvisational exploration. Accompanied by trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, pianist Jeb Patton, bassist Mike Karn and the inestimable drummer Kenny Washington, the band embarks on a set list of compositions which are at the intersection of tradition and modernity. The session opens with Charlie Parker's “Red Cross," a contrafact written over the lines of ...
Continue ReadingMike LeDonne: The Heavy Hitters
by Mike Jurkovic
Homing in on the electric, ancestral vibe of Rudy Van Gelder's house of musical myth and magic in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the Heavy Hitters, spearheaded by journeyman pianist Mike LeDonne and well-traveled saxophonist, Eric Alexander, approach this eponymous debut with a ballsy, brassy, big sounding blueprint which carries through the entire recording. In deciding who best to share Van Gelder's hallowed space with, LeDonne and Alexander brought in the big guns--namely trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, alto saxophonist Vincent ...
Continue ReadingMike LeDonne: The Heavy Hitters
by Pierre Giroux
There was a period back in the middle years of the 20th Century and beyond when All-Star Groups were quite common, including the Buck Clayton All-Stars, Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars, and Gene Harris and the Phillip Morris Superband among several other similar aggregations. In today's musical environment, this kind of coming together of high profile musicians is exceedingly rare, primarily driven by cost issues, although availability of the musicians is also a limiting factor. Pianist & organist Mike LeDonne was ...
Continue ReadingThe Heavy Hitters: The Heavy Hitters
by Jack Bowers
The Heavy Hitters. Hyperbole? A matter of fact? Or simply the name given by co-leaders Mike LeDonne and Eric Alexander to their newly minted sextet. The third statement is true--but so is the second. From pianist LeDonne and tenor saxophonist Alexander to fellow front-liners Jeremy Pelt (trumpet) and Vincent Herring (alto sax) and the Washingtons, Peter on bass and Kenny at the drums, these gentlemen are by any measure heavy hitters. Their first album as a unit ...
Continue ReadingThe Heavy Hitters: Heavy Hitters
by Troy Dostert
The self-titled debut from the Heavy Hitters, pianist Mike LeDonne's latest sextet, has the feel of a tribute album. However, unlike most recordings of that nature, there is no classic repertoire present, as all nine tracks are penned either by LeDonne or his colleague, tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander. Instead, it is a tribute to a sound that LeDonne and partners are aiming for: in this case, that of the iconic Blue Note label's 1950s-60s period, when artists such as Freddie ...
Continue ReadingMelvin Rhyne: Boss Organ
by Chris May
Originally released on CD on the Criss Cross label in 1993, Hammond B3 organist Melvin Rhyne's Boss Organ is issued here for the first time on vinyl. Spanish archive label Elemental, under license from Criss Cross, has repackaged it as a double LP in a gatefold sleeve on 180-gram audiophile vinyl. It is a blinder. Not because Rhyne deals in surging, heavily amped block chords, a la Jimmy Smith, but because his style is utterly unlike that, ...
Continue Reading
