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Tobias Meinhart: Sonic River
by Vic Albani
Bavarese trapiantato a Brooklyn da quasi un ventennio, Tobias Meinhart è un altro dei tanti nomi pressoché sconosciuti alle nostre latitudini. Mescolando il groove jazz con la narrazione poetica il sassofonista e flautista è da anni una presenza costante della scena newyorkese new mainstream. Come insegnano le note relative a questo suo nuovo lavoro inciso per la propria etichetta, i fiumi hanno sempre avuto un ruolo importante nella sua vita: se ai tempi della scuola il sassofonista, ...
Continue ReadingBryn Roberts: Aloft
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Bryn Ro has steeped himself in sideman roles and collaborations with singer-songwriters. He has released five albums as a leader in quintet, quartet and duo formats, but 2024 finds him offering up his debut as a leader of a piano trio in Aloft, where he works his trio dream team of bassist Matt Penman and drummer Quincy Davis. The history of the piano trio is a part of the challenge. Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Red Garland. Those ...
Continue ReadingRachel Z: Sensual
by Mike Jurkovic
Whatever her impetus--be it the loss of her parents or peans to a shared sense of hearth, home and heaven--pianist/composer Rachel Z's thirteenth full length album, Sensual, bares a sincere, hopeful humanity. Buoyed by a sense of survival, Sensual opens as if it were a letter, closing with the Foo Fighters' crotch-kick raise-the-roof-'n-rile-'em-up “These Days." Sensual pulls one in fast and fully with the keenly seductive opener, “Save My Soul." It dances. It stirs. Z, whose ...
Continue ReadingBen Winkelman: Heartbeat
by Neil Duggan
Awaiting the arrival of his first child while locked down in New York City during the pandemic were probably not the circumstances which pianist Ben Winkelman would ideally have chosen for writing new music. Nonetheless, taking inspiration from the anticipation of fatherhood and the feeling of isolation acted as the catalyst for the nine compositions which make up his sixth album, Heartbeat. His previous albums focused on a piano trio format; this one marks a slight change as ...
Continue ReadingJonathan Kreisberg: Night Songs
by C. Andrew Hovan
Although technical proficiency and filigreed improvisations often catch the attention of the average jazz fan, those in the know will insist that you can't really evaluate the mettle of a jazz musician until you hear how he interprets a ballad. Memorable efforts from the jazz cannon that fruitfully establish a reflective mood over the length of an album must include John Coltrane's Ballads, Kenny Dorham's Quiet Kenny, and Grant Green's Idle Moments. With six dates already as a ...
Continue ReadingMark Lockett: Swings & Roundabouts
by Jack Bowers
The “free jazz" movement has come a long way since its introduction mid-20th century by pathfinders like Tadd Dameron, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Andrew Cyrille, Lester Bowie and their kin. The music, which favors free expression in lieu of customary chordal, rhythmic and harmonic precepts, was at times puzzling, even painful, to unscramble. Over the years, free jazz has tempered to some extent its revolutionary aspects, one example of ...
Continue ReadingTobias Meinhart: The Painter
by Friedrich Kunzmann
During the past decade of working the jazz clubs of New York, German tenor saxophonist Tobias Meinhart has soaked up every inch of the musical tradition he started pursuing as a drummer in Bavaria in his early teens. A keen ear for melodic development, a gift for harmonic oversight and the whims for rhythmic intricacy already graced the saxophonist's last outing, Berlin People (Sunnyside, 2018), featuring the distinctive playing of Kurt Rosenwinkel. On The Painter, however, Meinhart has now also ...
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