Recording News

Steely Dan Sunday: "Dirty Work" (1972)

Source: Something Else!
April 3, 2011

Since Walter Becker and Donald Fagen first wrote songs with the idea that someone else would sing them and only started a band when they found limited success peddling their songs, some of the earlier Steely Dan tunes sound a little like they were meant for a different act. “Dirty Work" is like that. Then again, I think what really makes this song sound so un-Steely Dan-like might be because of who is singing it. David Palmer was allegedly foisted ...

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Recent Listening: Smith, Vu, Lynch, Akinmusire

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
April 3, 2011

Hundreds of CDs have piled up around Rifftides world headquarters. At a meeting, the staff voted whether to write, long, exhaustive analytical reviews of three of them or highlight many more in an effort to keep up with a jazz scene that—take our word for it—is not dying, at least not in terms of sheer recording output. Short and pithy won the vote over learned, diagnostic and likely to put you to sleep. This survey will go on intermittently, with ...

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James Carter's "Caribbean Rhapsody" Due from Emarcy Records May 17

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity
April 2, 2011

The extraordinary decade-long collaboration of jazz virtuoso James Carter and classical composer Roberto Sierra comes to a thrilling culmination with the release on May 17 of their first recording, Caribbean Rhapsody. Sierra's Concerto for Saxophones and Orchestra, composed for Carter and premiered in Detroit in 2002, is the centerpiece of the new Emarcy CD; a new Sierra composition, “Caribbean Rhapsody," which features Carter, his musical cousin Regina Carter on violin, and string quintet, is a gorgeous companion piece. Two solo ...

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Jazz/Pop Artist Halie Loren Releases "In Time (Hope for Healing)" as Single Download to Benefit Japan Relief Fund

Source: Halie Loren
April 2, 2011

In many countries, the name Halie Loren is not well known. However, in Japan, the talented Jazz/Pop singer's name is as well known and her CDs and concert tickets sell as well as Norah Jones and other popular singers in similar genres. The events in Japan over the last few weeks have affected everyone around the world, including Loren. She has turned energies and her talent and popularity in Japan to raise money with an original song called In Time ...

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Tony Malaby's Tamarindo Live!

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
April 2, 2011

Soprano-Tenor man Tony Malaby has been getting around much of late, appearing as a sideman or co-leader on quite a few dates, and putting together some very worthy sides as a leader. I'm now catching up with his latest, out a month or so, Tony Malaby's Tamarindo Live (Clean Feed 200). It certainly has clout and brilliance aplenty. There's Tony, the bass master himself—Mr. William Parker, a drive-and-bash specialist in drummer Nasheet Waits, and one of the most creative and ...

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One Track Mind: Kermit Driscoll with Bill Frisell and Vinnie Colaiuta, "Great Expectations" (2011)

Source: Something Else!
April 2, 2011

By S. Victor Aaron Pardon me as I continue on the topic of Bill Frisell The Sideman on an interpretation of a Miles Davis fusion deep cut. In the back of a Paris taxicab, probably sometime in the mid 1970s, three aspiring musicians were gobsmacked from the music playing on the radio. It was the early fusion side-long jam “Great Expectations" recorded by Miles Davis shortly after Bitches Brew. For one of these musicians, Big Fun, the album that this ...

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Lee "Scratch" Perry: Rise Again

Source: JamBase
April 2, 2011

NEW ALBUM PRODUCED BY BILL LASWELL; FEATURING TUNDE ADEBIMPE, BERNIE WORRELL, AND MORE As one of the most prolific, influential and irretrievably eccentric record producers ever, Lee “Scratch" Perry continues to reshape and refine an adventurous style all his own with his latest studio outing, Rise Again (Out May 10). A long-awaited collaboration with New York-based producer Bill Laswell (and a team of talented musicians), the album marks a milestone in the careers of both artists, arriving as it does ...

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Swimmer (Bandcamp, 2011) ****

Source: Free Jazz by Stef Gijssels
April 2, 2011

By Paul Acquaro 'Swimmer' is a new release from a group of the same name hailing from Chicago. I'm not entirely sure how I came across this group right now, but I downloaded a copy of their debut from bandcamp.com and have been enjoying the fruits of their labor for a couple days now.

Swimmer, the band, is comprised of the guitar and drum duo of Dave Miller and Cory Healey, who, along with their respective instruments, employ some technologies ...

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