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Sweet Megg: Bluer Than Blue
by Nicholas F. Mondello
One of the more niche genres in the history of jazz is western swing. Primarily dance music and hugely popular in the Southwest, it originated as a jambalaya blending hot jazz, country, blues, pop and traditional fiddle playing, performed by combos such as the Light Crust Doughboys and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. It incorporated instrumentation including violins, steel and electric guitars with other instruments. The music was a precursor of rockabilly. Bluer Than Blue superbly resurrects that energetic ...
Continue ReadingHannah Gill: Everybody Loves a Lover
by Pierre Giroux
Hannah Gill has a passion for jazz and draws her inspiration from the likes of Blossom Dearie, Anita O'Day and Ella Fitzgerald. On this debut release Everybody Loves a Lover, Gill takes on eleven swing-era standards, and while staying true to the original music, she infuses them with her style, which is inflected with blues and soul. Supporting her on this album is a septet of talented musicians who share her enthusiasm for danceable rhythms and melodic riffs. They are ...
Continue ReadingBen Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings
by Alberto Bazzurro
Si parte con un episodio che potremmo definire post-bop, “Cedar Place," uno dei sette a firma di Ben Rosenblum, integrati da “Somewhere" di Leonard Bernstein, “Philadelphia" di Neil Young e un tradizionale bulgaro, ma in fondo è una falsa rivelazione, perché a seguire questa che è l'opera prima del giovane pianista e fisarmonicista newyorchese si sdipana su toni decisamente variegati, in cui il grande ceppo jazzistico è certo perfettamente avvertibile, ma i vari episodi sono più compositi, qua e là ...
Continue ReadingBen Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings
by Jerome Wilson
Ben Rosenblum uses a lot of different instrumental elements on this release. For starters, he himself plays both piano and accordion, and his sextet also features trumpet, reeds and guitar. In addition, vibraphone and trombone show up on some tracks. That creates a blend of various textures and sounds which bring variety to this program of bright jazz compositions. Rosenblum's accordion flows together nicely with the sounds of Wayne Tucker's trumpet, and Jasper Dutz's bass clarinet on the ...
Continue ReadingBen Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings
by Jack Bowers
Expectations are necessarily guarded when preparing to appraise a recording by the Nebula Project whose leader plays accordion. Be that as it may, any such uneasiness is quickly erased by Ben Rosenblum and his doughty ensemble whose music is decidedly colorful, melodic and accessible—which is not meant to undervalue diversity, another of its discernible points. Rosenblum, who wrote seven of the album's ten numbers, draws on influences as varied as klezmer jazz, Bulgarian folk music and even Johannes Brahms to ...
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