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Recording

Nils Lofgren - Old School (2011)

Source: Something Else!
October 30, 2011

You could forgive Nils Lofgren, best known these days as a 27-year member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, for issuing a contemplative record after such a difficult period. And there's some of that here. Yet, in the wake of losing both E Street saxophonist Clarence Clemons (who passed in June at age 69 from complications following a stroke) and organist/keyboard player Danny Federici (after a battle with cancer in 2008), Lofgren begins the forthcoming Old School embroiled in a ...

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Recording

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette - Open Source (2011)

Source: Something Else!
October 30, 2011

Long, long before Nels Cline had attained his current status as one of the most original, fearless and bad-assed electric guitarists around, he was an obscure twenty-something acoustic guitarist playing in a small, acoustic combo called Quartet Music, that made four record in the 80s, all currently our of print. This “mini-orchestra" also had in it Nels' twin brother Alex on drums, the late, great Eric von Essen on acoustic bass, and a violinist named Jeff Gauthier. In the early ...

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Recording

Ochion Jewell - First Suite for Quartet (Mythology Records 2011) ****

Source: Free Jazz by Stef Gijssels
October 30, 2011

By Joe Higham Ochion Jewell's CD titled First Suite For Quartet released on David Binney's Mythology label, seems already one step ahead of your 'average' first CD release that I often get to hear. With such a grandiose title I was curious to see if a through composed piece of 48 minutes could hold my attention, and especially for a first album! Many first albums often attempt negotiating tricky chord progressions combined with displays of multiple time signatures and out ...

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Recording

Laurence Cook and Jim Hobbs Conjure "Tragedies of Love" on Blaq Lghtn Records

Source: Chris Rich
October 29, 2011

Blaq Lghtn recently released its third disc, Tragedies of Love, a duet involving the elder statesman of Boston drummers, Laurence Cook with the mayor of Boston music, Jim Hobbs and his beloved alto saxophone. It is a work laden with the reflections one might expect in the William Blake form of Experience. If anything, both epitomize Blake's notion of 'the prolific.' From Joslyn Layne at All Music, we have this succinct and useful summary for the drummer. “Drummer Laurence Cook ...

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Recording

Singer/songwriter Christopher Brant Anderson returns with stunningly beautiful new album

Source: Lauren Rogers
October 29, 2011

Few artists capture the folksy warmth and rain-swept beauty of the Pacific Northwest as eloquently as singer/songwriter Christopher Brant Anderson. Anderson's supple acoustic guitars speak a language all of their own. Whether they're striving for campfire intimacy or bristling with a melancholic ache, they live and breathe and cast an indelible spell. On his latest album Gravity & Time, Anderson sings of a life lived and love lost with the calm acceptance and youthful vigor of a man who has ...

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Recording

Bruno Chevillon and Tim Berne, "Old and Unwise": Open Contrabass-Alto Sax Duets

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
October 29, 2011

Freedom. Free-dom. What is it? And how do you get it? In music the word denotes something specific. At least in jazz. It means in part starting out a musical performance with the idea that what is going to happen will happen because the players spontaneously put their improvised parts together without a great deal of overt deliberation. They also, to whatever extent. play what they please, without someone dictating to them in some concrete sense. So it could be ...

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Recording

Sultans of String - Move (2011)

Source: Something Else!
October 29, 2011

What's intriguing about Move by Canada's Sultans of String isn't so much the dancing violins that skitter here and there, or even the fizzy guitars that seem to weave in and around this globe-trotting tapestry. It's the way the album, for all of its Spanish flamenco joys, great bossa flourishes and gypsy jazz mystery, does all of that while still swinging like crazy. They called the project Move for a reason. For all of the many, many sophisticated trappings here—Sultan ...

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Recording

Dan Blake - Aquarian Suite (2011)

Source: Something Else!
October 29, 2011

When taking in Julian Lage's uniquely poetic Gladwell earlier this year, I sensed something uncommonly creative about Lage's saxophonist, Dan Blake, and his ability to blend in flawlessly with a cello and play music that reconciled jazz and folk and classical music. He even contributed music that fit perfectly into this eclectic formula, with “However." But, as Blake's own burgeoning career as a leader makes clear, my senses hadn't been failing me. Last week, Blake followed up on his debut ...

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