Jazz Articles
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Brandee Younger: Brand New Life
by La-Faithia White
American harpist and composer Brandee Younger fuses hip hop, classical, funk and jazz on Brand New Life. Younger became a Grammy award nominee for her label debut. Brand New Life features new works inspired by her hero, harpist Dorothy Ashby. “You're A Girl For One Man Only" written by Younger and Ashby, has reinterpretations of Dorothy Ashby; a beautiful, meditative love song and nice collaboration with the vibraphone; a smooth introduction with Younger and drum snares. “Brand New ...
read moreThe Easy Way
by Richard J Salvucci
It is fair to wonder how Jimmy Giuffre would be remembered had he not gone off on to the wilder shores of atonality, collective improvisation, and free jazz with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow in the early 1960s. It is easy to forget that Giuffre was regarded as a rising star, both as a multi-instrumentalist (he played tenor and baritone sax; clarinet was apparently a double for him) and a composer, in the 1950s. Yes, mentioned in the same breath ...
read moreMomentum Space
by Dan McClenaghan
Momentum Space was released in 1999 on Verve Records. Considering the players--saxophonist Dewey Redman, pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Elvin Jones--the album didn't make much of a splash. Reviews were mixed, leaning toward the dismissive. Taylor was 70 at the time. Jones was in his early 70s and saxman Redman was in his late 60s. Taylor was widely considered a genius of free jazz, or a madman who was going out there on the bandstand and jiving us--the ...
read moreLouis Armstrong: Louis Wishes You A Cool Yule
by Chris May
Plenty of jazz fans loathe “holiday" albums, defined as many of them are by cheap sentimentality and fake bonhomie. If the eggnog does not make you retch, the tackily jazzed-up Christmas carols will. But Louis Armstrong's Louis Wishes You A Cool Yule is an exception. Armstrong himself was exceptional. As Duke Ellington observed, “He was born poor, died rich, and never hurt anyone along the way." Consider something else... Armstrong smoked weed pretty much every day of ...
read moreDave Brubeck: Lullabies
by Doug Hall
Unlike other unearthed discoveries from seminal jazz musicians, pianist Dave Brubeck's Lullabies(Verve, 2020) is not an extension of studio material from his quartet years with alto saxophone master Paul Desmond or a bootlegged recording caught in a nightclub setting. In contrast, archival recordings uncovered since 2018 by other seminal artists such as John Coltrane on Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album( Verve, 2018), Stan Getz on Getz at the Gate: The Stan Getz Quartet Live at the Village Gate, ...
read moreDave Brubeck: Lullabies
by Chris May
Pianist and composer Dave Brubeck's centenary falls in December 2020 and two albums are being released to coincide. One is the outstanding Time OutTakes (Brubeck Editions), consisting of out-takes from the sessions which produced Time Out (Columbia, 1959). The album includes vibrant alternative readings of “Blue Rondo A La Turk," “Kathy's Waltz" and “Time Out" itself among previously unheard versions of the first five tracks from the 1959 album. Unlike so many previously unheard (for good reason) collections of out-takes, ...
read moreJimmy Heath: Love Letter
by Thomas Fletcher
Often nicknamed “Little Bird," Jimmy Heath began on the alto saxophone acquiring this informal title by dedicating his studies to Charlie Parker and his wee stature. Although not a familiar name to many outside of the devoted jazz community, Heath would go on to pursue a remarkable 76-year career sadly passing away in January, 2020. A fabled musician to many tenor players, Heath presents us with his final testament, a collection of formative ballads. Enhancing the already prolific ...
read moreJimmy Heath: Love Letter
by Chris May
Love Letter is the final album to be made by saxophonist Jimmy Heath, who passed in January 2020 aged 93. It was completeted just a month earlier. The title is well chosen: the album is a love letter to jazz, a love letter to ballads, and a love letter to Heath's surviving family members, friends and audience. Soulful and luminous, it is everything one could hope for in the last will and testament of a jazz master. ...
read moreNina Simone: Fodder On My Wings
by Karl Ackermann
Nina Simone found success from the beginning of her recording career in 1959. With the release of Nina Simone at Town Hall (Colpix), her third album that year, she became a fixture on the downtown New York club scene. Her life and career took a different turn not long afterward. Simone's activism in the Civil Rights Movement deepened in the 1960s as a reaction to the assassination of Medgar Evers and the fatal bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church ...
read moreJon Batiste: Anatomy of Angels
by Chris May
As the bandleader and musical director on CBS TV's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, pianist Jon Batiste will be known to many AAJ readers in the US. Here on the other side of the pond his name rings fewer bells. So before discussing Batiste's piano trio + octet album Anatomy of Angels, some background for European readers. Batiste comes from a distinguished line of jny: New Orleans musicians which includes the late Harold Battiste, whose accomplishments ...
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