Jazz Articles about Michael Mayo

Cory Smythe: Accelerate Every Voice

by Alberto Bazzurro
March 9, 2022

Un vivace, originale intreccio di voci, diremmo più di matrice contemporanea che strettamente jazzistica (questa costola respira semmai soprattutto nel pianismo del leader Cory Smythe), anima questo stimolante lavoro, in cui anche l'elettronica gioca un suo ruolo, per quanto discreto. Lo compongono otto apprezzabilissimi brani brevi (il più lungo supera di poco i cinque minuti) e uno, invece, molto ampio (diciannove), logorroico e dispersivo, che purtroppo deturpa e disperde in buona parte quanto di buono, spesso di ottimo, lo precede, ...

Nate Smith: Kinfolk 2: See The Birds

by Mark Corroto
September 10, 2021

If there were brick & mortar establishments called record stores today, one could imagine the challenge Nate Smith's Kinfolk projects would pose for an employee trying to file his latest releases. Those familiar with the drummer's work in the bands of Chris Potter, Dave Holland, or Alex Sipiagin might place the discs in the jazz section, but then again he's worked with the jazz/pop/soul singers José James and Norah Jones and he heads up the funk/soul band The Fearless Flyers. ...

Michael Mayo: Living Without Labels

by Leo Sidran
June 21, 2021

Ben Wendel: High Heart

by Mike Jacobs
October 30, 2020

If Ben Wendel's fifth outing as a leader High Heart shows anything, it's that the saxophonist is ever advancing. While this may seem a fait accompli for a card-carrying member of the shapeshifting collective Kneebody, Wendel's worthy solo efforts have been notably more in a traditionally-sounding vein and thus his innovations were perhaps a bit less readily evident to ears acclimated to that other side of his resume. And yes, by comparison to Kneebody, High Heart still tacks toward a ...

Cory Smythe: Accelerate Every Voice

by Karl Ackermann
May 28, 2020

Pianist/electronics artist/composer Cory Smythe's Pyroclastic Records debut Circulate Susanna (2018) was a tongue-in-cheek attribution to the inspiration of a fictional event. He returns to the Kris Davis run label with the intriguing, socially-conscious and genre-less Accelerate Every Voice. Inspired by an assortment of sources: Andrew Hill's Lift Every Voice (Blue Note, 1970), the work of Harlem Renaissance poet and early NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson, and the a cappella art form and its sociological duality. Smythe is an ...