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Jazz Articles about Luca Alemanno
Julie Kelly: Freedom Jazz Dance
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Freedom Jazz Dance from Los Angeles singer, Julie Kelly offers an interesting array of selections that emanate from that musical road less traveled. And, as in life, sometimes that road yields nuggets of delight that would most likely never make it to the tried and true way." Peter Nero and Carroll Coates' New York on Sunday" opens things and is a lilting snap on 2 and 4 groove with Kelly joyously covering it and Josh Nelson slickly ...
read moreJosh Nelson: LA Stories: Live at Sam First
by Robert Petersen
Josh Nelson's LA Stories: Live at Sam First was recorded in February 2022 at Sam First, which has quickly become the heartbeat of L.A.'s jazz community. With this album, Nelson continues a love letter to Los Angeles he began with his 2017 release, The Sky Remains, which was part of his Discovery Project multimedia series. In a city where history is too often forgotten, Nelson puts it center stage. In Tiburcio," Nelson conjures the life of the 19th ...
read moreMichael Ragonese: Stracci
by Pierre Giroux
It would probably be a hyperbole to say that young jazz pianists are a dime a dozen." Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there are some stellar younger jazz pianists working today, such as Emmet Cohen, Kenny Banks Jr., and Paul Cornish, and that if you are going to play in this league, you must have a style which sets you apart from the rest. Michael Ragonese possibly falls into that category as evidenced by his latest ...
read moreMichael Ragonese: Stracci
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Michael Ragonese is called Rags, a nickname given to him in childhood that stuck. His sophomore effort is entitled Stracci which means rags in Italian--a more musical sound than its English equivalent. It is a piano trio outing, a top-notch one. Ragonese's musical backstory is a common one. He began in classical studies and after a time felt constrained. He was introduced to jazz via a Bill Evans album--no better place to start--and he switched his focus. ...
read moreGiuseppe Magagnino: After The Rain
by Neil Duggan
With a background in both jazz and classical music, Giuseppe Magagnino brings us his second album, After The Rain. This follows on from My Inner Child (2021, GleAM Records) and showcases the Italian pianist's artistic evolution in solo, trio and orchestral formats. His classical background is particularly strong having performed with the Prague String Orchestra, the Rome Philharmonics and the String Quartet of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. On the jazz side, he founded the Mag Trio and has ...
read moreNicola Conte: Umoja
by Chris May
Nicola Conte continues on his journey from acid-jazz bohemian to spiritual-jazz sophisticate with this immaculately hip album, fronted on half of its tracks by London-based soul-jazz divas Zara McFarlane and Bridgette Amofah. Conte began his trajectory with the acid-jazz template Jet Sounds (Schema, 2000), boosted it with Jet Sounds Revisited (Schema, 2002) and, after a brief post-hard-bop detour with Other Directions (Blue Note, 2004), began the spiritual-jazz ascent which has in 2023 reached its new, lofty apogee with ...
read moreSimon Moullier Trio: Countdown
by Geno Thackara
Simon Moullier declares that one of his goals with his second recording is to make the vibraphone disappear." To this end, he eschews the colorful guest list of his debut Spirit Song (Outside In, 2020) and puts his instrument at the head of an acoustic trio where it gets to fill out most of the melodic space. Perfectly logical, no? Nevertheless, although his unpretentious virtuosity carries the day on Countdown, it is not too hard to grasp what ...
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