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Jarrett Carter
Sanifu Hall & Cosmos Dwellerz Arkestra: These Are The Times
by Andy Crowther
Without paying attention to sleeve notes, you could be a fan of the Black Jazz record label and their run of funky yet deep releases of the 1970s, and miss the fact that trombonist Sanifu Al Hall Jr. both played and wrote on albums from Doug Carn, Henry Franklin, and Chester Thompson. If you like golden age hip-hop, and the classic “Luck Of Lucien" by A Tribe Called Quest, you might know it sampled “Forty Days" from Billy Brooks Windows ...
Continue ReadingMadre Vaca: Knights of the Round Table
by Jack Bowers
The legend of King Arthur and Camelot is depicted musically on Knights of the Round Table, the sixth album by the Florida-based eleven-member ensemble, Madre Vaca, whose themes are composed by drummer Benjamin Shorstein. While Knights is presented as a ten-part suite, there seems to be no connecting tissue aside from the names of individual works --"Arthur," “Camelot," “Galahad," “Merlin," “Guinevere" and “Lancelot" among them. True, there seems to be an over-all medieval vibe underlining Shorstein's music, ...
Continue ReadingBlue Muse: It Never Entered My Mind
by Hrayr Attarian
Blue Muse, the ensemble that tenor saxophonist Sarah Lee founded, plays mainstream jazz with elegance and vigor. The group's second recording, the delightful It Never Entered My Mind, is an engaging batch of standards crackling with vibrant spontaneity which highlights both the distinctive virtuosity and the combined artistry of the musicians involved. Pianist Horace Silver's rhythmically intricate “Nutville" opens with drummer John Medico's brisk rumble leading to the effervescent main theme. Trumpeter Steve Strawley launches into an energetic ...
Continue ReadingMadre Vaca: The Elements
by Jack Bowers
Ambitious? How about depicting musically four basic elements--fire, water, earth, wind--and doing so with only four musicians. On its fourth recording, The Elements, the guitar-led quartet Madre Vaca endeavors to do exactly that, and in roughly forty-one minutes. Each of the album's four selections was written by a member of the group: “Fire" by drummer Benjamin Shorstein; “Water" by guitarist Jarrett Carter; “Earth" by bassist Thomas Milovac; “Wind" by pianist Jonah Pierre. So how do they fare? ...
Continue ReadingMadre Vaca: Winterreise
by Jack Bowers
For its third recording, the Florida-based jazz octet Madre Vaca has chosen to perform music by Franz Schubert—hold it; stop right there! Music by who? Yes, that's what it says—music by none other than Franz Schubert (1797-1828), an Austrian composer of what we know as classical music who in his brief lifetime wrote more than 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies (and the well-known “Unfinished"), as well as sacred chorales, operas, and chamber, piano and incidental music. When did ...
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