Jazz Articles about Mike Cottone

About Mike Cottone

Album Review

Mark Masters Ensemble: Sam Rivers 100

Read "Sam Rivers 100" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 26, 2025

The Mark Masters Ensemble released Porgy and Bess Redefined! (Capri Records) in 2005. The music was taken from the George Gershwin/DuBose Heyward English-language opera, which was first performed in 1935. Masters' take on the classic was brilliantly expressed by the ensemble, who dug into his adventurous charts with freedom mixed with respect for the familiar and often-covered (most notably by the Miles Davis/Gil Evans teaming) original. It was a breakout effort for Masters. Billy Harper was there on tenor sax, ...

Album Review

Mark Masters: Sam Rivers 100

Read "Sam Rivers 100" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 23, 2025

Sam Rivers 100 is the first of two homages recorded in 2023-24 by arranger Mark Masters and his blue chip southern California-based ensemble. This one pays tribute to the music of the late saxophonist Sam Rivers on the hundredth anniversary of his birth; the second, Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance! salutes the music of tenor saxophonist Billy Harper who is the ensemble's guest soloist on both albums. Rivers, who died in December 2011, was an early bebopper who ...

Album Review

Justin Chart: Live In Los Angeles

Read "Live In Los Angeles" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
January 3, 2022

Los Angeles-based, award-winning, musician Justin Chart is both an accomplished singer-songwriter and a superlative saxophonist. Chart infuses his jazz work with a distinct melodicism and his pop songs with a crackling spontaneity. A number of his releases are recorded in one take and are mostly improvised while eschewing dissonance and embracing lyricism. His tenth, Live in Los Angeles, is no different. Accompanying him through this exciting set of 12 originals are a rotating cast of sidemen all of whom share ...

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Album Review

Mike Cottone: Just Remember

Read "Just Remember" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
October 2, 2011

Just Remember is the timely debut from Mike Cottone, reflecting the young New York-based trumpeter's musical journey thus far and paying tribute to a pivotal figure in his career, Daniel McMurray, his late high school band director and mentor. Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr., who performs on several pieces, co-produces the project with Marc Iacona of the Rochester International Jazz Festival. The album serves as both a tribute to McMurray and a remembrance of all those who played a part in ...