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Various Artists: Scarborough Jazz Festival Present: 2024 Live Festival Compilation
by Neil Duggan
In the late 1960s, record labels introduced inexpensive compilation albums that typically focused on specific genres. These collections strategically paired established artists with emerging talents. By doing so, they offered listeners an accessible entry point to discover multiple artists within a particular scene--essentially functioning as an early form of playlist. While such musical curation now primarily occurs on digital platforms, the organisers of Scarborough Jazz Festival have revived this tradition with a compilation recording of performances from their 2024 event. ...
Continue ReadingBlack Lives: People Of Earth
by Glenn Astarita
Black Lives is not just a band; it is a movement. Comprised of globally recognized artists across generations and genres, their mission transcends mere musical performance. They aim for a utopia, especially in these turbulent times where words of hate and racism proliferate faster than cat videos on the internet. Now more than ever, their cause is vital. The album does not veer away from its intentions: to raise awareness, inspire change, and celebrate unity. Musicians from the ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Live at the M/Darbnīca Vol.1
by Vitalijus Gailius
In 2017 a boom happened in Latvian and Baltic jazz history with the coming of Jersika Records, an independent jazz and improvised music record label. Since then, the Riga-based label has been delivering top-notch music records each year. Focusing mainly on Latvian musicians and bands with occasionally occurring exceptions such as Estonia-based American trumpeter Jason Hunter or Lithuanian saxophone virtuoso Liudas Mockūnas. Jersika Records has become a warm place for Baltic jazz. In 2023, Jersika Records released its ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Hip Holland Hip
by Chris May
This carefully curated disc is subtitled Modern Jazz Classics 1950-1970 and is a collection of tracks recorded by Dutch musicians and released in the Netherlands mostly in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Few of the musicians other than a sprinkling of American guest artists such as Herbie Mann and Art Farmer will be known to most listeners in 2023, including, one suspects, many in the Netherlands itself. An exception is Han Bennink, who is heard on ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Black Lives - From Generation to Generation
by Glenn Astarita
Indeed, African Americans are the architects of several musical formations, hearkening back to Scott Joplin's development of 'ragged' rhythms i.e., Ragtime, along with blues, funk, jazz, and other genres, often evolving into various tangents and offshoots. And on this comprehensively entertaining set produced by Belgian Stefany Calembert with assistance from her husband and acclaimed bassist Reggie Washington, they righteously bestow Black Music as a “source of moral truth and potent weapon against racism." Numerous stars such as saxophonist ...
Continue ReadingVarious Artists: Putumayo Presents Jazz Christmas
by Jim Trageser
The Putumayo World Music compilations have achieved an enviable brand status with their wide-ranging stylistic variety and the distinctively cheerful covers by artist Lisa Gonzalez. The latest entry, Putumayo Presents Jazz Christmas joins previous entrants Putumayo Presents New Orleans Christmas (2007) and Putumayo Presents A Jazz & Blues Christmas (2008) in offering collections of holiday-themed entrants in a jazz vein. As with all of its jazz releases, Putumayo founder and curator Dan Storper's taste in jazz ...
Continue ReadingVarious artists: Changüí - The Sound of Guantánamo
by Jim Trageser
In much of our supposedly modern world, there is a distinct demarcation between the creators of music, and those who listen. Musician and audience, the former expecting to earn a living by performing for the latter. More and more, Western society's division of labor is stripping away the idea of communal music, Except, apparently, in Cuba. Or at the very least, Guantánamo province. What brings this to mind is the splendid new three-disc collection ...
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