Jazz Articles about Matt Penman

About Matt Penman

Album Review

Billy Childs earned a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album for his 2023 release The Winds Of Change (Mack Avenue Records). Triumvirate arrives as the follow-up. Accolades are not unusual for Childs. He holds six Grammys in total, along with numerous nominations, reflecting his exceptionally high standards both as a jazz pianist and classical composer.This release marks his first trio recording since the mid-'90s. He enlists his longtime collaborators from live performances: bassist Matt Penman and drummer ...

Album Review

Alex Wintz: Collage

Read "Collage" reviewed by Joshua Weiner

by Joshua Weiner
June 4, 2026

Grammy-nominated guitarist Alex Wintz is not only a frequent performer, both with his own group and with artists such as the trumpeters Etienne Charles and Jeremy Pelt and trombonist Nick Finzer, but also an educator on the faculty of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Jazz for Teens program and a clever composer. Collage features six excellent original tunes along with the jazz standard “The Shadow of Your Smile" and George Harrison's “Isn't It A Pity" and follows Wintz's two ...

Album Review

Theo Bleckmann: Love and Anger

Read "Love and Anger" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
April 21, 2026

Nella ristretta cerchia dei cantanti jazz maschili Theo Bleckmann s'è distinto per la cifra eclettica che l'ha portato a spaziare in quasi ogni ambito musicale: dagli standard del songbook statunitense alla sperimentazione vocale, dal pop al gospel, dal rock alla classica. Residente a New York dall'età di 23 anni, dopo gli studi di canto jazz in Germania Theo è rapidamente maturato dopo la collaborazione del 1994 con Meredith Monk, con cui ha affinato la tecnica vocale e consolidato l'innata spinta di ...

Album Review

Tobias Meinhart: Sonic River

Read "Sonic River" reviewed by Vic Albani

by Vic Albani
August 5, 2025

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, ...

Album Review

Bryn Roberts: Aloft

Read "Aloft" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 23, 2024

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 ...

Album Review

Rachel Z: Sensual

Read "Sensual" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
March 28, 2024

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 ...

Album Review

Ben Winkelman: Heartbeat

Read "Heartbeat" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
September 6, 2023

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 ...