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7
Album Review

Jeff Lederer with Mary LaRose: Schoenberg on the Beach

Read "Schoenberg on the Beach" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Saxophonist Jeff Lederer has used several unexpected inspirations for musical projects over the years, such as Shaker hymns and the writings of Herman Melville. Schoenberg on the Beach may be the most audacious thing he has ever done. It blends the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern and the sounds of Coney Island together into an intriguing song cycle performed by a team of exceptional jazz musicians. Schoenberg lived in Los Angeles in the latter part of ...

6
Album Review

Jeff Lederer: Balls of Simplicity

Read "Balls of Simplicity" reviewed by Mark Corroto


To describe Jeff Lederer's latest offering, borrow a catchphrase from Monty Python's Flying Circus, “and now for something completely different." The saxophonist, clarinetist and composer might be best known for reimagining the music of Albert Ayler in both the traditions of the Shaker Christian sect or in a sea shanties format, his irreverent reimagining of Dixieland music with Swing N' Dix, and his horns in drummer Matt Wilson's ensembles. Lederer's Balls of Simplicity moves into the world of chamber music, ...

3
Album Review

Mary LaRose: Out Here

Read "Out Here" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Vocalist Mary LaRose has long been putting vocals, with and without words, to the works of modern jazz composers such as Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden and Eric Dolphy. This CD is her first full-length exploration of Dolphy, probing the free-wheeling elusiveness of his work with a group which includes several of the instruments he used in his recordings, cello, vibraphone, and bass clarinet. LaRose approaches Dolphy's music by putting lyrics to some tunes, singing wordlessly on ...

3
Album Review

Jeff Lederer: Eightfold Path

Read "Eightfold Path" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


The “spiritual jazz" tradition has been undergoing something of a revival and it gets a real boost with this robust new offering from tenor saxophonist Jeff Lederer. This is a revival of the Sunwatcher Quartet, a group Lederer formed in 2011 to celebrate the music of Albert Ayler. This version of the band retains original members Jamie Saft on keyboards and Matt Wilson on drums but adds the distinctive electric bass sound of Steve Swallow. Lederer wrote all ...

2
Album Review

Mary LaRose: Out Here

Read "Out Here" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Vocalist Mary LaRose has explored the instrumental music of jazz artists in the past, penning lyrics to the music of Thelonious Monk,Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, and Charles Mingus. Also included in her previous releases is the music of Eric Dolphy, who has always been a spirit guide for LaRose. With Out Here, she dedicates an entire album to Dolphy's compositions, plus a couple pieces tied to his legacy. This session reminds you of the great Carmen McRae's Carmen ...

4
Album Review

Jeff Lederer's Sunwatcher: Eightfold Path

Read "Eightfold Path" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Knowingly or unknowingly, we are all on the Dharma path. It doesn't matter if you are a Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jain, or Satanist. Okay, maybe not Satanist, but we are all in our own way desiring some form of enlightened awakening and the end of suffering. During the height of the pandemic, saxophonist Jeff Lederer assembled his Sunwatcher quartet to explore this noble Eightfold Path. As students of the path are told, you must walk hand in hand with ...

7
Album Review

Shakers n' Bakers: Heart Love

Read "Heart Love" reviewed by Mark Corroto


For most of us it is, and always has been, red states and blue states. I'm talking us vs. them, liberals and conservatives, or my ball team and yours. Same goes for music. The moldy figs vs. beboppers and later, neocons vs. avant-gardists. Yet, some musicians like Albert Ayler, as a radical departure from the norm, lived outside of such designations. He did so at the commencement of his career and also at its conclusion. Both phases drew the ire ...

3
Album Review

Honey Ear Trio: Swivel

Read "Swivel" reviewed by Mark Corroto


The opening track of Allison Miller's new Honey Ear Trio recording, “Arby," had me singing the lyrics to “Heavy Metal Drummer," the 2002 Wilco hit song ..."She fell in love with the drummer/Another and another/She fell in love/I miss the innocence I've known/Playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned." That connection is made from the heavy, maybe better yet, HEAVY entrance the Honey Ear Trio makes with track one. Miller, saxophonist Jeff Lederer (Matt Wilson Quartet, Brooklyn Blowhards) and bassist plus ...

1
Album Review

Jeff Lederer's Brooklyn Blowhards: Brooklyn Blowhards

Read "Brooklyn Blowhards" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Imagine seeing a despondent Albert Ayler walking around Brooklyn on a cold November day in 1970, with his tenor saxophone under his arm. Some say he threw himself into the East River, a suicide by drowning. His loss, our loss, was one a true original voices in jazz. Now picture Ayler with a copy of Moby-Dick; or, The Whale tucked under his arm. Reading the 800-plus pages of Herman Melville's opus has been attempted by many, but completed ...

3
Album Review

Mary LaRose: Reincarnation

Read "Reincarnation" reviewed by Mark Corroto


The best stories are, indeed, the one's you already know. Told over- and-over again, each time a little different. That's comfort food for the ears. Enter vocalist Mary LaRose, recounting the music of Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, and Ornette Coleman with lyrics she penned and performed as a sympathetic partner to these jazz giants. The singer has visited some of this music before, recording Coleman's “Broken Shadows" and some Mingus on her disc Cutting The Chord (Leadhead Productions, ...


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