Jazz Articles about Mary Halvorson

About Mary Halvorson

Year in Review

Best Jazz Albums of 2025: All-Star Break Edition

by AAJ Staff
July 2, 2025

As we hit the halfway mark of 2025, All About Jazz has adopted Major League Baseball's All-Star break approach but swapping homers for albums. Our team of 55 writers convened to name their top three albums of the year so far, with Mary Halvorson's About Ghosts (Nonesuch) emerging as the clear favorite and an early contender for album of the year. Her collaboration with Sylvie Courvoisier (Bone Bells, Pyroclastic Records), also earned spots on a few lists. Other notables include ...

Album Review

Ches Smith: Clone Row

by Vic Albani
June 16, 2025

Giù il cappello ancora una volta. Ches Smith è davvero un meraviglioso esempio di intelligenza e--dopo il bellissimo capolavoro dedicato al Voodoo (Path of Seven Colors) pubblicato con Pyroclastic nel 2021, ma anche Laugh Ash del 2024--tira fuori dal cappello un'altra meraviglia affrontando un'autentica destrutturazione di un super quartetto con tanto di due chitarre (Mary Halvorson, regina del canale destro, e Liberty Ellman, protagonista di quello sinistro) e Nick Dunston (basso ed elettronica). Nelle spettacolari note a ...

Album Review

Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts

Read "About Ghosts" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
June 13, 2025

Since Mary Halvorson began her prolific affiliation with Nonesuch Records, she has refused to repeat herself except with a purpose. The simultaneous release of Amaryllis & Belladonna (Nonesuch Records, 2022) was the precursor to the expansive Cloudward (Nonesuch Records, 2024), while About Ghosts represents a retrenchment, albeit a productive one. On five of these eight cuts, the identical Amaryllis Sextet that appeared on the latter LP interacts smoothly with guest saxophonists Immanuel Wilkins and Brian Settles. Such synchrony ...

Album Review

Adam O'Farrill: For These Streets

Read "For These Streets" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
June 11, 2025

With For These Streets, trumpeter and composer Adam O'Farrill presents a sharply contoured, richly imagined statement for mid-sized band--his most complete vision to date. Drawing on an eclectic range of influences, from 1930s-era music, literature and film to the rhythms of contemporary urban life, O'Farrill leads a wily crew of his peers through a program that moves with narrative cohesion. Though not a suite in the formal sense, the album unfolds like one, the pieces linked by emotional throughlines and ...

Album Review

Adam O'Farrill: For These Streets

Read "For These Streets" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 10, 2025

Trumpeter and composer Adam O'Farrill distills a heady mix of inspirations into For These Streets, the debut release from his new octet. Drawing on music, literature and the ambiance of the 1930s, the album reflects his immersion in the era--Henry Miller's prose, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, and the sonic worlds of Stravinsky, Ravel, Carlos Chávez and Kurt Weill. None of this background is necessary to appreciate the music, nor is it mentioned in the packaging. But knowing it adds a ...

Album Review

Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts

Read "About Ghosts" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
June 8, 2025

It has become more than an urban legend that Brooklyn's genius-in-residence Mary Halvorson is supernaturally up to something. Some new route around something else. On her second resiliency test of the year--her first, the fiery Bone Bells (Pyroclastic, 2025) alongside hot-house pianist Sylvie Courvoisier still rattles the playlist--Halvorson's About Ghosts tells of wide open spaces with a wide open lens. Its intricate inner architecture is so comfortably ethereal that you sway freely within its charm and frenzy. About ...

Album Review

Adam O'Farrill: For These Streets

Read "For These Streets" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
May 19, 2025

Con questo nuovo disco Adam O'Farrill scrive una delle pagine più avvincenti del 2025, confermando di non essere solo un magistrale trombettista ma un compositore d'alto spessore anche per medio organico. Nei quattro album col quartetto Stranger Days, ha dimostrato di saper integrare con coerenza le forme del post bop degli anni sessanta con gli sviluppi delle avanguardie successive e in questo ottetto stellare prosegue, ampliando lo spettro armonico e timbrico con l'uso di vibrafono (Patricia Brennan), chitarra ...