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Walter Smith III: Return To Casual
by Dave Linn
Walter Smith III released his debut album, Casually Introducing (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2006), to enthusiastic reviews. On it, he covered Sam Rivers, Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman and wrote the other six tracks, showcasing a mature and varied sense of composition. His playing and arrangements showed him to be a new, young (he was 26 years old) artist on the rise. Over the ensuing years, he released eight other albums, mainly for European labels. These recordings (including one live ...
Continue ReadingKendrick Scott: Corridors
by Chris May
Some of the press releases coming out of Blue Note's Los Angeles HQ since the pandemic have been ripe for inclusion in British satirical magazine Private Eye's Desperate Marketing column. In this, the Eye prints particularly egregious, or just plain laughable, attempts by publicists to hook-up what they are selling with headline news events, or to make eye-wateringly hyperbolic claims, or to manufacture an intellectual or cultural context for an artefact where none such exists. True, one ...
Continue ReadingKendrick Scott: Corridors
by Mike Jurkovic
Drummer Kendrick Scott's A Wall Becomes A Bridge (Blue Note, 2019) was everything to everybody and then some. Optimistic yet well aware of the roiling contradictions beneath it all, the formidable Corridors, its revivalist tenor intact, carries on that spirit of interplay and common alliance. Breaking from the start with the loping, street-smart, stride of “What Day Is It?" Scott with Corridors take a sure journey, featuring conversant saxophonist Walter Smith III and the equally versed bassist Reuben ...
Continue ReadingAnthony Branker: What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements
by Michael Ambrosino
Ma Rainey channeled music as her ritual of “singing to understand life." Congressman John Lewis leveraged music towards the “good trouble" he created fighting for civil rights in an uncivil land. Anthony Branker understands music as the calculus of his life's work—the art of weaving words and sound into transcendent tapestries that explore the rich, complex, and nuanced aspects of intolerance, beauty, prejudice, spirituality, gender, equality and social justice. The composite of this artistry exists within the remarkable ...
Continue ReadingWalter Smith III: Listen To The Young Players
by Leo Sidran
From an early age, Walter Smith III began taking music very seriously. “My first gig was playing at a McDonalds in Houston]} with another saxophonist. I took a solo on “Blue Bossa." It was terrible. People clapped, and I figured if I could get away with that and get applause, how could I fail?" <br /><br />Although it may appear Smith is a new voice on the scene, he is widely recognized as an adept performer, accomplished composer, and inspired ...
Continue ReadingWalter Smith III & Matthew Stevens: In Common III
by Chris May
The third iteration of tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III and guitarist Matthew Stevens' In Common project is another delightfully lyrical and inventive affair. Each of the albums presents Smith and Stevens in the company of a different three-piece rhythm section. The first had vibraphonist Joel Ross, bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Marcus Gilmore. The second had pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Nate Smith. On In Common III, the quintet is completed by pianist ...
Continue ReadingMarquis Hill: New Gospel Revisited
by Chris May
Chicago-born trumpeter Marquis Hill released his first album while still in college and in 2022, just over a decade later, he has retooled it on New Gospel Revisited, recorded live in his hometown with a fresh lineup and tweaked instrumentation. It is a terrific disc. Like his near contemporary and fellow trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Hill holds his music to be part of a broad musical continuum that includes genres other than jazz, notably hip hop. ...
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