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The History of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (Blue Note, 1992)
Source:
Music and More by Tim Niland
During his lengthy career that stretched from the late 1940's to the late 1980's, drummer Art Blakey was at the forefront of bebop and hard-bop jazz. His band would become an incubator for young jazz talent, many of whom went on to have significant careers in the music. This three-disc set presents highlights from Blakey's recordings, and while by no means a comprehensive summation (Mosaic once did a six disc boxed set about one year of Blakey's music, 1960) it ...
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Avishai Cohen - After the Big Rain (2007)
Source:
Something Else!
Reviewers sometimes get too caught up playing the label game: jazz, pop, world (ah, the ambiguous catch-all label), rock, ambient. Whenever a writer struggles with material that lacks a definite musical anchor, I am reminded of the transformation seen through Miles Davis' electric years. Squeaky horns, abusive guitars, fuzzed-out keyboards, all woven together with constantly shifting, obscenely polyrhythmic percussion. It was jazz, pop, rock, ambient, and a handful of other things. Forget the category, nothing sounded like this. Trumpeter Avishai ...
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Joey Baron - Tongue in Groove (2004)
Source:
Something Else!
By Tom Johnson Drummer Joey Baron's Baron down, featuring Steve Swell on trombone and Ellery Eskelin on tenor sax comes across like the mischievous little brother to John Zorn's Masada. More than that, the only way to adequately describe the sound of Barondown is to compare it to big brother Masada, but only if Masada got really drunk one night before a show, and since bassist Greg Cohen missed his bus for the gig, the band just got up on ...
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Johnny Mercer: Sunny Side Up
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Few voices do a better job of capturing post-war American optimism than Johnny Mercer's. His relaxed, upbeat and folksy style captured the nation's “new dawn" mentality perfectly. His songs between 1942 and 1947 have a Hollywood sensibility, and they effortlessly grab your heart. It's a happy voice that sounds like a one-armed bandit chugging out jackpot coins. A box set that captures his evolution perfectly—from too-cute by half phrase-turner to West Coast pop-swinger—is Johnny Mercer (Mosaic Select). Even though Mercer ...
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Violinist Stefano Zeni Releases "Passaggi Circolari"
Source:
Gaetano Petronio
Passaggi Circolar (YVP MUSIC)—the new album by the violinist and composer Stefano Zeni—is available in music shops, iTunes and other digital stores. The CD features Guido Bombardieri on saxophone, Antonio Prencipe on piano, Davide Dejana on bass, Joe Damiani on drums & percussions and Maurizio Giannone on percussions, together with special guests such as Ellade Bandini (drums), Mario Arcari (oboe), Eros Cristiani (fender rhodes & synth), Diego Maggi (fender rhodes & synth) and Massimo Zeni (sequencer and electronic effects). Passaggi ...
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William Parker - Luc's Lantern (2005)
Source:
Something Else!
By Mark Saleski Digital. It's just got to be digital—ones 'n zeros. Forget that old-fashioned analog stuff. That's for old fogies. If you want to be with it, current, where it's at, up to date, in the know, down with it ... your activity must be presented in bits (for those who are suffering from extreme curiosity and/or insomnia, a bit is a contraction of the words binary digit. That is, a one or a zero.) The following are modern ...
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Farewell Bill Dixon...Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra, 2008
Source:
Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
The great Bill Dixon is gone. I am late at putting my hand at a fitting memorial line or two. This is all I think I need to say: Bill Dixon never sounded like anybody else on trumpet and he never wrote a line that didn't have his indelible stylistic footprint squarely emblazoned upon it. So we turn to one of his last recordings, Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra (Thrill Jockey 192). As I nabbed this as a download ...
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Ron Carter's Great Big Band (Sunnyside, 2011)
Source:
Music and More by Tim Niland
Bassist and composer Ron Carter has accomplished just about everything possible in jazz from his famous tenure with Miles Davis to hundreds of recorded sessions as a leader or a sideman. But there's one exception up until now he has never led a big band. Now he has fulfilled this dream, with a seventeen member large ensemble playing originals and standards arranged by collaborator Bob Freedman. The selections the band play run the gamut from bass led originals like “Opus ...
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