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Art Hirahara: Balance Point
by Kyle Simpler
There are times in life when many of us try to find a sense of stability in an uncertain world. New York-based pianist Art Hirahara refers to this as homeostasis, or “a sense of balance within ourselves regardless of what is happening around us." With Balance Point, his fifth release for Posi-Tone Records, Hirahara uses the idea of homeostasis as his central concept. He presents his own “transformative journey," inviting listeners come along for the ride. Balance Point ...
Continue ReadingAmina Figarova: Persistence
by Edward Blanco
Veteran jazz pianist Amina Figarova embarks on a bold new step with her genre-bending Persistence, creating a new sound for the pianist with music that produces an electric-influenced groove mixing funk-jazz, jazz fusion, hip-hop, classical and R&B rhythms found on this new exploratory album. After two decades leading an acoustic sextet, her new quintet ensemble, Edition 113 (named after the block where she and her and husband, flautist Bart Platteau make their home) was assembled specifically to perform the eclectic ...
Continue ReadingMichelle Lordi: Break Up With the Sound
by C. Michael Bailey
Vocalist Michelle Lordi's house burned down at the end of 2017. That is a bracing life event from which one may find oneself at a brutally curious fork in the road. Lordi's Break Up With the Sound makes it seem that she blazed through Kubler Ross's five stages of loss and got to work on something so new, it smelled of white-hot creation. Lordi's modus operandi has been addressing the Great American Songbook, as evidenced by her densely competent Dream ...
Continue ReadingNoah Preminger Group: Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert
by Dan McClenaghan
With Zigsaw: The Music of Steve Lampert, saxophonist Noah Preminger presents his most ambitious album to date. Trumpeter-composer Lampert writes cerebral, avant-garde compositions. Preminger, rather than diving into a collection of Lampert tunes, takes on a single forty-nine minute magnum opus piece that zigzags back and forth between structure and openness, with an all-star septet that creates a sometimes brash, sometimes dreamy and rambling sound. Describing this sound: a sonic jigsaw stew comprised of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew ...
Continue ReadingNoah Preminger Group: Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert
by Karl Ackermann
Tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger has dedicated considerable effort into his imprint on jazz variations of the delta blues with Some Other Time (Newvelle, 2016), Pivot: Live At The 55 Bar (Self-Produced, 2016) and Meditations on Freedom (Self-Produced, 2017). Zigsaw: Music of Steve Lampert is a departure in concept and content with a single extended track composed by Steve Lampert. With this album, Preminger hits a new peak with the fourteenth album in his prolific career. Steve Lampert is ...
Continue ReadingRudy Royston's Flatbed Buggy
by Ludovico Granvassu
Rudy Royston's latest project, Flatbed Buggy (Greenleaf Music), is an expertly crafted, chamber-like jazz ensemble with musical influences that range from blues and Americana to rock and gospel. Featuring a stellar line-up with Hank Roberts on cello, John Ellis on woodwinds, Gary Versace on accordion and Joe Martin on bass, the music of this project is dusty and airy, groovy and swinging, evoking countryside images and outdoor freshness. A lover of all genres of music, Royston continues to ...
Continue ReadingRudy Royston, Wojciech Jachna and More
by Bob Osborne
This week the featured album is the new release by Rudy Royston, and we focus on Polish trumpet maestro Wojciech Jachna. In between a varied selection of different genres from the wide World of Jazz. Playlist Rudy Royston “Soul Train" from Flatbed Buggy (Greenleaf) 00:00 Valerio Pontrandolfo & Harold Mabern Trio “Twenty" from Are You Sirius? (Associazione In Jazz We Trust) 10:46 Jon Irabagon “Quintessential Kitten" from It Takes All Kinds (Jazzwerkstatt) 15:09 Nicole Mitchell Indigo Trio “Thankfulness" ...
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