Jazz Articles about Melvin Jones

About Melvin Jones

Album Review

On Memphis Blue, acclaimed bassist Rodney Jordan bows deeply to his Tennessee hometown via a series of charming and largely blues-tailored themes that are designed to trace the city's unique character and heritage. Jordan wrote four of them, including the album's title song and animated tributes to trumpeter Roy Hargrove and drummer Art Blakey. Jordan has the first two minutes, forty-five seconds of “Memphis Blue" to himself before pianist Louis Herivaux and drummer Quentin Baxter lend their ...

Album Review

Black Gold Orchestra: Genesis

by Jack Bowers
December 8, 2023

Two years after it was formed by drummer Larry Wilson in 2021, the impressive Atlanta, Georgia-based Black Gold Orchestra has released its debut album, Genesis, a handsome medley of original compositions by Wilson and saxophonist Frank Houston complementing others by Cedar Walton, Horace Silver, Charles Earland and OutKast (a.k.a. Andre Benjamin). Even though the themes by Walton ("Firm Roots"), Silver ("Nutville") and Earland ("The Creation") are explicit highlights, Wilson's four compositions stand up well beside them, as ...