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Kate McGarry + Keith Ganz Ensemble: What to Wear in the Dark
by C. Michael Bailey
Being taken for granted is the greatest tribute and worst slight to any artist. Kate McGarry has made music that brilliantly colors outside the lines since her release, Show Me (Palmetto Records) in 2003 (there was a 1992 standards release, Easy To Love (Vital Records) that is out-of-print). Her career has provided five provocatively thoughtful and inventive recordings between that release and 2018's The Subject Tonight Is Love (Binxtown Records). Listeners have come to expect something a little different from ...
read moreKate McGarry + Keith Ganz Ensemble: What to Wear in the Dark
by Dan McClenaghan
Let us start with a nod to Steely Dan, the rock/jazz group headed up by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, a pair of tunesmiths who hit a career zenith in the early 1970s with albums like Can't Buy A Thrill (1972), Countdown To Ecstasy (1973), Pretzel Logic (1974) and Aja (1974), all on ABC Records. The group drew in top jazz artists to help craft their albums—saxophonists Wayne Shorter and Tom Scott, guitarists Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour, drummers Steve ...
read moreChristian Sands: Be Water
by Mike Jurkovic
A small opus which rises from within, “Intro," unassuming title and all, begins Be Water, a true wealth of music which pianist Christian Sands has designed to flow not only like the awe-inspiring, fear-inducing title element, but like mercy, freely and without boundary. And so it does. For next is “Sonar," a romping festival of feisty performances from Sands and his core trio of bassist Yasushi Nakamura and drummer Clarence Penn which is meant to assure each other ...
read moreGrégoire Maret / Romain Collin / Bill Frisell: Americana
by Karl Ackermann
Harmonica player and composer Grégoire Maret is not a familiar name in the U.S. but he should be. The New York-based artist has recorded with Jimmy Scott, Jacky Terrasson, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Charlie Hunter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Pat Metheny and many others. The very bankable musician has appeared on over seventy-five releases as a sideman and has recorded as a leader on three albums. Americana unites Maret with pianist, composer and label-mate Romain Collin, along with legendary guitarist ...
read moreAndy Milne: The reMission
by Mike Jurkovic
Ever hear a disc and wonder why the deep-seated beauty of some players' music escapes your radar? Juno Award-winning pianist and composer Andy Milne's The reMission, a challenging, tough, terse and ultimately triumphant recording, is one of those. One of those discs that, after several uninterrupted listens, has one digging into the discography scrambling to catch up. A composer with an agile, far flung curiosity, Milne has held the bench for Ravi Coltrane and Ralph Alessi. He's teamed ...
read moreKandace Springs: The Women Who Raised Me
by Peter J. Hoetjes
Cover albums tend to sort themselves pretty neatly into two separate bins. One is filled with tiresome stacks of uninspired music soon to be filed away and forgotten. The other, smaller pile is made up of those few in which the artist on the cover managed to do something more than parrot their predecessors. Those who wish to belong to the latter group find a way to add a personal touch to their songs, in such a way that each ...
read moreGene Ess: Apotheosis
by Chris Mosey
The inspiration for Apotheosis, Japanese-American guitarist Gene Ess's fourth album, is taken from mythologist James Campbell's book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces," first published in 1949. In this Campbell describes apotheosis as “the expansion of consciousness a hero experiences when defeating his foe." His theories concerning fictional heroes have been used as a template by many modern writers and artists, including George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars films. Now Ess is applying them to jazz. ...
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