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LIVE FROM PHILADELPHIA

Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Sirius Juju and Unspeakable Garbage at Jerry's on Front

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Mostly Other People Do the Killing/Sirius Juju/Unspeakable GarbageJerry's on Frontjny: Philadelphia, PAFebruary 16, 2019 Twenty blocks and a world away from the clubs and bars of Philadelphia's city center, the experimental art space of Jerry's on Front is a room one would hardly imagine for music at all. It's a nondescript one-car-garage-sized room squeezed into a row of shuttered storefronts, looking more suitable for a woodworking space or fly-by-night pawn shop. Dimness makes the bare ...

ALBUM REVIEWS

Ashley Wilson: Paint The Sky

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Ashley Wilson's debut recording features the vocalist and songwriter singing eleven original tunes, incorporating a range of genres and mining a lot of her own experiences. “Once In A While" starts the album with a flirty tune about fighting and then making up, set to a rising and chromatically falling theme. Bitter chords amidst the country twang of “Fool" illustrate that unfaithfulness is never easy, and pointed lyrics about being in love for five years hint at a biographical element. ...

MULTIPLE REVIEWS

The Sound Of Progress: Lioness And Ellen Rowe

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The voices of women who've been marginalized, demeaned, abused, and overlooked will no longer be silenced. The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have pulled the curtains back on deplorable actions and practices that have run rampant in all corners of society, the jazz world being no exception. With scandals airing out hidden truths at the Berklee College of Music, individual musicians and educators being held accountable for their inexcusable actions the world over, and brave victims speaking out, the tide is ...

ALBUM REVIEWS

Sun Ra: God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be

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Herman Poole Blount, contrary to some urban myths, didn't claim to be born on the planet Saturn but had purportedly been transported there--and back--in his teens. A life shrouded in mystery, it isn't entirely clear when Blount became Sun Ra but it's estimated to be in the early 1940s when he was active on the Chicago jazz scene. Ra was a prodigy, playing piano and composing before he was in his teens. In his lifetime, he released sixty-eight studio albums ...

MULTIPLE REVIEWS

Satoko Fujii's Orchestras

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Among pianist and composer Satoko Fujii's many and varied ensembles are the orchestras she leads in various cities. These two releases contrast Fujii's approach to orchestral music with the results of another composer writing for one of her orchestras. Satoko Fujii Orchestra Tokyo Kikoeru Libra 2018 Kikoeru was the final release in Fujii's ambitious 60th birthday CD-a-month program last year. All the music on the disc was composed either by Fujii ...

ALBUM REVIEWS

Jason Palmer: Rhyme And Reason

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You may wish you had paid more attention in your high school chemistry class, because listening to Rhyme And Reason by trumpeter Jason Palmer calls to mind the description of the nucleus of an atom. Spinning and spinning, various protons and neutrons are both attracted and held off by each other. Same can be said of his quartet recorded live at the Jazz Gallery in 2018. Listeners need not venture to the subatomic level to experience the electron charge this ...

RADIO

Make It Big!

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The boys might not be the most ambitious podcasters on the planet, but sometimes even they think big. This fortnight's excursion is all about large and extra-large ensembles, from a band trying something new in the mid-fifties to a tribute group wrestling with the music of one of jazz's greatest composers to three -count 'em--brand new albums with fifteen or more musicians digging in. After that extra-long discussion of plus-size organizations, just a little time remains to discuss Pat's favorite ...

ALBUM REVIEWS

Tony Monaco: The Definition of Insanity

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The popular quote referenced in this CD's title has been attributed to many--most frequently to Albert Einstein. With this fine offering, organ virtuoso Tony Monaco steers clear of Sisyphean do-overs and delivers eleven diverse and well-performed tracks. “Cars Trucks Buses" by Phish's Page McConnell kicks the session off with a hefty, “short'nin' bread" B3 cooker. From this slick get-go, Monaco shows he's got A1 jazz chops and his colleagues are right there with him on the trip. ...

RADIO

A Focus on Tony Malaby

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A focus on saxophonist Tony Malaby with a variety of music from his work as a leader, co-leader and as a sideman demonstrating his exceptional playing. Playlist Gordon Grdina “Visceral Voices" from No Difference (Songlines) 00:00 Rez Abassi “Dark Bones" from Out of Body (Feroza) 09:04 Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth “Arthur Avenue" from Epicenter (Clean Feed) 19:49 Pandelis Karayorgis, Mat Maneri “Three Plus Three" from Disambiguation (Leo Records) 27:56 Tony Malaby Paloma Recio “Artifact" from Incantations (Clean Feed) 38:22 ...

ALBUM REVIEWS

Simon Toldam Trio: Omhu

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The bebop and hard bop revolution of the forties and fifties made speed a virtue as razor-sharp unison lines cut through the rhythms. A saxophonist like Johnny Griffin was praised for his fast way of playing that also underlined his technical virtuosity, and the muscular style signaled a music completely in touch with modernity. Nowadays, there is little new land to conquer in terms of speed, but a new millennium has opened a frontier where silence and ...

MULTIPLE REVIEWS

South African Saliency: Reza Khota, Carlo Mombelli, Andrew Lilley, and Mandisi Dyantyis

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As sure as the sun will shine on Chapman's Peak and the winds will sweep over Table Mountain, South Africa will continue to flourish and birth new music worthy of worldwide attention. The West may typically pay little to no mind to South African jazz and the artists who shape it, but that has yet to put a damper on the creative pursuits of that nation's brightest lights. Below, under observation, are four notable releases from South African-based musicians who've ...

LIVE REVIEWS

ECM @ Winter Jazzfest 2019

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ECM @ Winter Jazzfest 2019 (Le) Poisson Rouge New York, NY January 11-12, 2019 On January 11th and 12th, Winter Jazzfest attendees were treated to two nights of performances by some of the ECM's most vibrant affiliates. The impressions left in their wake verged on moving pictures, comprising a montage of producer Manfred Eicher's voluminous commitment to the music at hand. Shades of that same commitment resounded through every set, by which one chapter after ...