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Amina Figarova: Joy
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Amina Figarova released an album in 2005 that was about as far away from the theme of “joy" as could be. September Suite (Munich Records) explored the deadly events of September 11, 2001 (she was in New York at the time; she experienced it). It is an album that she called: “An Ode to Mourning striving to articulate the various stages of grief in musical terms." In 2022 Figarova turns 180 degrees to embrace optimism and a ...
Continue ReadingThomas Linger: Out In It
by Pierre Giroux
For his first release as a leader, pianist Thomas Linger has surrounded himself with first rate musicians: guitarist Peter Bernstein, bassist Yasushi Nakamura]] and drummer {{Joe Farnsworth, each of whom share Linger's commitment to a reflective approach. All of the numbers are originals by Linger, with covers of “Lush Life" by Billy Strayhorn and “Woofin'and Tweetin" by Art Farmer. The album's strong sound comes in no small part because the recording was completed, in July 2021, at the Van Gelder ...
Continue ReadingThomas Linger: Out In It
by Jack Bowers
Any pianist who can enlist the sort of blue-chip rhythm section which Thomas Linger has for a debut album must be not only talented but unselfish, which is precisely the case on Out In It; Linger is accompanied by a trio of seasoned New York-based jazz luminaries, guitarist Peter Bernstein, bassist Yashushi Nakamura and drummer Joe Farnsworth. Even though Linger is the nominal leader, he makes it clear from the outset that this is a quartet, one in which everyone is ...
Continue ReadingGreg Germann: Tales of Time
by Jack Bowers
Tales of Time is the sort of album musicians are most apt to dissect and appreciate. New York-based drummer Greg Germann uses various time signatures to subdivide eleven of his original compositions, building a strong rhythmic platform from which to launch his assorted themes. Germann supervises a quartet whose other members are tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin, pianist Luis Perdomo and bassist Yasushi Nakamura (singer Chelsea Forgenie is front and center on the ballad “Time to Move On"). ...
Continue ReadingUlysses Owens Jr. Big Band: Soul Conversations
by Jack Bowers
Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.'s Big Band comes out swinging on its debut recording, Soul Conversations, thundering through Michael Dease's incendiary arrangement of the Dizzy Gillespie/John Lewis flame-thrower, “Two Bass Hit." For more such heat, however, the listener must move forward to Track 5, John Coltrane's impulsive “Giant Steps," thence to Track 9 for Charles Turner III's earnest homage to “Harlem Harlem Harlem," on which he doubles as vocalist. That's not to say that everything in between is ...
Continue ReadingAmina Figarova: Persistence
by Maurizio Zerbo
Il pregio della varietà sostanzia la cifra artistica della pianista Amina Figarova, non circoscritta entro i soli confini del jazz. Dopo il progetto orchestrale del penultimo CD, la musicista azera residente a New York apre la finestra del suo etereo pensiero compositivo verso i territori della fusion, del funk, del rap. Da queste premesse discende un disco ibrido nella sua eccellente realizzazione, che testimonia la continua evoluzione del jazz e la nobiltà dei suoi migliori protagonisti. A far da tessuto ...
Continue ReadingVeronica Swift: This Bitter Earth
by Angelo Leonardi
Ad appena 26 anni Veronica Swift firma il suo album più avvincente e maturo, imponendosi come la vocalist stilisticamente più completa emersa nel nuovo millennio. Dotata di un talento prodigioso, s'è imposta nell'affollato panorama odierno delle cantanti per inventiva e virtuosismo, rinnovando l'eredità di grandi interpreti degli anni cinquanta come Anita O'Day e Dinah Washington. Veronica Swift s'esprime con esuberante entusiasmo e profondità interpretativa, sorretta da una naturale capacità di “comunicare" col pubblico, ben oltre il semplice ...
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