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Kanoa Mendenhall
Kanoa Mendenhall is a bassist living in NYC. Born in Japan, at a young age Kanoa moved with her family to the Central Coast of California, near Monterey. Her parents shared their love of music with her, and from childhood music helped Kanoa through periods of hardship and instability. She started learning the cello at age 10, inspired by Oscar Pettiford, before transitioning to the bass in middle school. After entering high school, she started working in the Bay Area with musicians such as Bruce Forman, Vince Lateano, and Dick Whittington. Kanoa moved to New York City in 2015 to study at Columbia University and the Juilliard School, where she was fortunate to attend studio classes led by Ron Carter, and study bass with Ben Wolfe and Ugonna Okegwo. After graduating in 2019, she has performed with Joel Ross’ Good Vibes, Aaron Parks, Micah Thomas, Marcus Gilmore, Marta Sanchez, Dayna Stephens, Johnathan Blake, Milena Casado, Kalia Vandever, María Grand, and more. She can be heard on Joel Ross’ album Who Are You and Nublues on Blue Note Records.
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Alden Hellmuth: Good Intentions

by Neri Pollastri
Sempre attenta alle nuove leve internazionali, l'etichetta spagnola Fresh Sound pubblica l'album d'esordio della giovane sassofonista Alden Hellmuth, originaria del Connecticut ma da tempo residente a Los Angeles. In questo suo primo lavoro --per il quale ha già vinto in Germania un premio come miglior album di esordio del 2024 --l'artista si presenta al sax contralto alla testa di un quintetto completato dalla tastierista Yvonne Rogers, dal chitarrista Lucas Kadish, dalla contrabbassista Kanoa Mendenhall e dal batterista Timothy Angulo, formazione ...
Continue ReadingGrand/Nebbia/Sánchez/Mendenhall/Fernández: Altered Visions

by Mark Corroto
In July 1967, The Beatles released the single All You Need Is Love," with Baby, You're a Rich Man" on the flip side. It's not that the quintet performing Wild Marks," the 33-minute track comprising the entirety of Altered Visions, is covering that Lennon-McCartney anthem. But the music presented here embodies the spirit of the idea that love is all you need. Altered Visions is the inaugural release from Lilailia Records, a label founded by three artists: saxophonists ...
Continue ReadingDayna Stephens: Closer Than We Think

by Jack Bowers
A few brief observations: first, New York-based Dayna Stephens is an excellent saxophonist. Second, the other members of his quartet on Closer Than We Think, Stephens' twelfth album as a leader, are similarly proficient. Third, Stephens clearly had a specific plan in mind before entering GB's Juke Joint to record the album in May 2023, one whose purpose, he writes, was to nurture a spirit of togetherness as an answer to today's divisive and fractured landscape. While ...
Continue ReadingMicah Thomas: Mountains

by Stefano Merighi
La prima traccia di Mountains, Life," potrebbe suggerire un equivoco di fondo: un bel disco di jazz elegante, sgargiante nei colori, brillante nell'alternanza tra incedere orchestrale e voci individuali. Ma invece è solo l'incipit di un'opera ad alto tasso dialettico, che offre talmente tante soluzioni da frastornare. Micah Thomas (28 anni, ricordiamolo) ha già tutta la storia del jazz--e non solo--sotto le sue dita. E' un altro tra i numerosi pianisti e pianiste in grado di sintetizzare ogni ...
Continue ReadingMicah Thomas: Mountains

by Mike Jurkovic
It can never not be exciting and enthralling to listen to a young artist come into his or her own as pianist/composer Micah Thomas does on the very live, very rollicking, very palpable Mountains. Thomas' fourth disc as captain of the ship chronicles four hot sets in June of 2023 commissioned by The Jazz Gallery Residency Fellowship at New York's Jazz Gallery. The pianist and company get right down to it as Thomas delves headlong into ...
Continue ReadingJune Yun: Enlightenment - Solid Waves

by Dan McClenaghan
South Korean vocalist June Yun's compositional debut, Enlightenment -Solid Waves, explores the feelings and emotions elicited by the concepts of light and dark. These things are difficult to describe in words but translate, with her music, into compelling, atmospheric soundscapes full of shadows, apparitions, angelic imagery and mystical moods. Vid Jamnic's resonant vibraphone murkiness lays a backdrop for Yun's emotive clarity of expression on the disc's opener, Little Mighty Soul." The lyrics are cryptic and bring to mind mid-career Joni ...
Continue ReadingJoel Ross: Nublues

by Chris May
Planning this, his fourth album as leader on Blue Note, Joel Ross set out to connect with a wider audience, to make things a little easier for listeners. The vibraphonist and composer says that, with hindsight, his previous work for the label has been too focused on the musicians in his band and rife with devices such as time and tempo changes which may have limited appeal for lay listeners. Thinking about the album during pandemic-enforced social isolation, Ross says ...
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O.C.T (Oda to the Crazy Times)
From: Reflection Of Another SelfBy Kanoa Mendenhall