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Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts
by Doug Collette
Since Mary Halvorson began her prolific affiliation with Nonesuch Records, she has refused to repeat herself except with a purpose. The simultaneous release of Amaryllis & Belladonna (Nonesuch Records, 2022) was the precursor to the expansive Cloudward (Nonesuch Records, 2024), while About Ghosts represents a retrenchment, albeit a productive one. On five of these eight cuts, the identical Amaryllis Sextet that appeared on the latter LP interacts smoothly with guest saxophonists Immanuel Wilkins and Brian Settles. Such synchrony ...
Continue ReadingAdam O'Farrill: For These Streets
by John Sharpe
With For These Streets, trumpeter and composer Adam O'Farrill presents a sharply contoured, richly imagined statement for mid-sized band--his most complete vision to date. Drawing on an eclectic range of influences, from 1930s-era music, literature and film to the rhythms of contemporary urban life, O'Farrill leads a wily crew of his peers through a program that moves with narrative cohesion. Though not a suite in the formal sense, the album unfolds like one, the pieces linked by emotional throughlines and ...
Continue ReadingAdam O'Farrill: For These Streets
by Mark Corroto
Trumpeter and composer Adam O'Farrill distills a heady mix of inspirations into For These Streets, the debut release from his new octet. Drawing on music, literature and the ambiance of the 1930s, the album reflects his immersion in the era--Henry Miller's prose, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, and the sonic worlds of Stravinsky, Ravel, Carlos Chávez and Kurt Weill. None of this background is necessary to appreciate the music, nor is it mentioned in the packaging. But knowing it adds a ...
Continue ReadingMary Halvorson: About Ghosts
by Mike Jurkovic
It has become more than an urban legend that Brooklyn's genius-in-residence Mary Halvorson is supernaturally up to something. Some new route around something else. On her second resiliency test of the year--her first, the fiery Bone Bells (Pyroclastic, 2025) alongside hot-house pianist Sylvie Courvoisier still rattles the playlist--Halvorson's About Ghosts tells of wide open spaces with a wide open lens. Its intricate inner architecture is so comfortably ethereal that you sway freely within its charm and frenzy. About ...
Continue ReadingAdam O'Farrill: For These Streets
by Angelo Leonardi
Con questo nuovo disco Adam O'Farrill scrive una delle pagine più avvincenti del 2025, confermando di non essere solo un magistrale trombettista ma un compositore d'alto spessore anche per medio organico. Nei quattro album col quartetto Stranger Days, ha dimostrato di saper integrare con coerenza le forme del post bop degli anni sessanta con gli sviluppi delle avanguardie successive e in questo ottetto stellare prosegue, ampliando lo spettro armonico e timbrico con l'uso di vibrafono (Patricia Brennan), chitarra ...
Continue ReadingTomeka Reid Quartet: 3+3
by Chris May
Jazz cello has come a long way since Fred Katz's pioneering work with Chico Hamilton in the 1950s. Back then, the instrument was looked on as a novelty turn. In 2024, while still relatively avant-garde, its presence in a lineup is less exceptional. A pivotal point was American cellist Adbul Wadud's By Myself (Bishara, 1977), an album Tomeka Reid has acknowledged as an inspiration, and which may have played a part in her transition from classical music to jazz around ...
Continue ReadingMary Halvorson: Cloudward
by Doug Collette
The title of guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's Cloudward alludes to the sense of optimism she has stated she felt when writing the bulk of the material in fall of 2022. And while this palpable sense of faith in the future is in marked contrast to the tangible air of eerie foreboding that surfaced so often on this LP's predecessors, the presence of largely the same personnel lineup--the Amaryllis Sextet-- provides a stable link of continuity. The reappearance of prior collaborators recording ...
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