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Coleman Hawkins: Fifty Years Gone, A Saxophone Across Time
Fifty years ago this past year, Coleman Hawkins, considered the father of tenor saxophone in jazz, passed away. Thelonious Monk was pacing back and forth in the hallway outside Hawkins' hospital room when the saxophonist succumbed at age 64 on the morning of May 19, 1969, from pneumonia and other complications. Monk was holding a short stack of albums that Hawkins had gifted him just before being hospitalized. With Monk was the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, attendant to ...
read moreChelsea McBride's Socialist Night School: Aftermath
Aftermath is the second album by composer / arranger / tenor saxophonist Chelsea McBride's Toronto-based Socialist Night School. It's a bright-eyed ensemble, comprised for the most part of young musicians who are fully on board with McBride's contemporary approach to big-band jazz (think Muhal Richard Abrams, Julius Hemphill, Darcy James Argue or Charles Mingus with a touch more accord and a tad less dissonance). McBride's music is largely thematic and, as the group's title implies, broadly insurgent. ...
read moreC. Michael Bailey's Best Releases of 2019
The number of critics writing for All About Jazz is such that there is little content overlap from one scrib to the next. This provides the reader a rich and compelling collection of opinion from which to derive guidence regarding a broad variety of music. Also contributing to All About Jazz as a resource are the varied and disparate backgrounds of the writers, each bringing something a little different from the other to the discussion. Coupled with a year plentiful ...
read moreTed Quinlan: Absolutely Dreaming
Toronto-based guitarist Ted Quinlan is a Canadian institution on the instrument and constantly in high demand. Over the years he has performed as a sideman alongside famed musicians such as Chet Baker, Jimmy Smith or Dave Holland, while keeping busy as a leader. His guitar tone varies from clean and smooth to fuzzy and rough, channeling Wes Montgomery as much as Allan Holdsworth in careful adaptation to the respective composition. On Absolutely Dreaming Quinlan presents nine originals which account for ...
read moreTed Quinlan, David S. Ware, Nicolás Boccanera and More
This week there is a focus on new releases from Ted Quinlan, David S. Ware, Nicolás Boccanera and Land of Kush. Other recent releases are on the playlist. Absolutely Dreaming is the latest release from Toronto jazz guitarist Ted Quinlan, who is a veteran of the Canadian jazz scene. It combines his deep roots in the tradition with an adventurous spirit and an eclectic point of view. He is joined by his longtime musical cohorts, pianist Brian Dickinson, bassist Kieran ...
read moreTom Tallitsch: Ten
Ten is a recording that resides and functions well in a stylistic no man's land. Tenor and soprano saxophonist Tom Tallitsch and his clever band display little interest in paying homage to easily recognizable jazz styles; yet, they don't make a point of abandoning traditional practices either. Taking a stab at some basic descriptions of some of Tallitsch's six compositions—medium tempo swing, skewed jazz-funk, a deliberately paced jazz waltz, Latin-tinged jazz, etc.—amounts to something of a fool's errand. Suffice it ...
read moreMark Corroto's Best Releases of 2019
2019, that was some trip around the sun, wasn't it? Every road trip requires good tunes and this past year we heard some great music. The list below is my top ten, well sixteen releases (in no particular order). I pared down a much larger list, three times this size and still believe there was more great music released in 2019 that I have yet to discover. Kris Davis Diatom Ribbons Pyroclastic Records
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