Recording News

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Recording

Exploding Star Orchestra - Stars Have Shapes (2010)

Source: Something Else!
September 26, 2010

By Pico Cornet player Rob Mazurek has got to be one of the busiest guys on the robust Chicago fringe jazz scene. We loved Sound Is when it came out last year, which introduced his new quintet, but Mazurek has by then helmed or co-helmed so many other projects that starts with jazz and ends up who knows where: Isotope 217, Tigersmilk, Exploding Star Orchestra, and the Chicago Underground Orchestra, with its splinter groups Chicago Underground Duo, Chicago Underground Trio ...

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Recording

New CD Dutch Drummer Ron Van Stratum

Source: Michael Ricci
September 26, 2010

"Swingin' In The Swamp"—the story of how this album came into being is as unusual as the name itself! And the best way to hear it is from Ron van Stratum himself: “About five years ago, I felt that it was time to write a new repertoire for my band, go into a great studio, record a CD and get the ball rolling. But as life so often goes, I was constantly busy with other (wonderful) projects for other (wonderful) ...

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Recording

Henry Grimes and Rashied Ali - Spirits Aloft (Porter Records, 2010)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
September 25, 2010

This recoding documents a live meeting between two of the legends of the “new thing" free jazz movement of the 1960's, drummer Rashied Ali, who was best known as John Coltrane's last drummer, but was also a loft jazz club entrepreneur and label owner, along with being musical pioneer and longtime band leader. Henry Grimes, playing bass and violin here, played with everyone from Sonny Rollin to Alber Ayler back during the first phase of his career, then famously dropped ...

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Recording

Jazzwax List: 7 by Earl Coleman

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 26, 2010

Earl Coleman is an all-but-forgotten vocalist today. The barrel- voiced baritone was born in Port Huron, Mich., in 1925 and starting singing with bands led by Jay McShann and Earl Hines. In New York in the late 1940s, he became a fixture in the clubs of 52nd Street. Coleman brought enormous feeling to the ballads and blues he sang, sounding as though he were yawning and stretching while singing. Coleman also was a favorite of leading jazz musicians who recognized ...

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Recording

Sarah Wilson - Trapeze Project (2010)

Source: Something Else!
September 24, 2010

By Pico “Different and original," “Blur(s) stylistic boundaries," “developed a new music all her own" are phrases that have been used to describe the music of San Francisco Bay area trumpeter and singer Sarah Wilson. Those are just the phrases that popped in my mind as soon as I popped Trapeze Project into the CD player for the first time. These adjectives didn't come about by happenstance nor do they come from a forced learning; this style sprung as a ...

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Recording

The Friday Morning Listen: Pat Metheny Group - First Circle (1984)

Source: Something Else!
September 24, 2010

By Mark Saleski Over at A Blog Supreme, they're tossing around an interesting question: What's The First Coltrane Album You Fell In Love With? That's an easy one for me: it was Interstellar Space. It sort of confused me (OK, it confused the heck out of me!) but I totally dug the barely-controlled energy levels, the wild interplay, and how it made me feel. No doubt, Trane and Rashied Ali opened my ears to a whole different side of jazz. ...

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Recording

Morello and Barth: Eldorado Weekend

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 24, 2010

I love how Europeans interpret the bossa nova. The French have been particularly deft at capturing the genre's softness and sensuality. Think Henri Salvador, Francis Lai's soundtrack for A Man and a Woman (1966) and Mary L., a relatively new Parisian singer. But the French don't have a monopoly on producing convincing Brazilian tributes. Germany's Paulo Morello and Denmark's Kim Barth have just released the remarkable Morello and Barth: Fim De Semana Em Eldorado (or in English, “Weekend in Eldorado"). ...

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Recording

Recent Listening: Jack Reilly at Maybeck

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
September 26, 2010

Jack Reilly, Live At Maybeck Recital Hall (Unichrom). Maybeck is a small hall in Berkeley, California, loved by pianists and listeners for the perfection of its acoustics. Carl Jefferson of Concord Records was so taken with the sound of the room that he initiated a series of 42 solo piano recordings there. It began with Joanne Brackeen in 1989 and ended with James Williams in 1995. In between is a variety of the finest pianists in jazz, among them Dick ...

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