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31
Album Review

Dave Askren/Jeff Benedict: Denver Sessions

Read "Denver Sessions" reviewed by Jack Bowers


There are times when a little extra effort goes a long way. To record the Denver Sessions, guitarist Dave Askren and saxophonist Jeff Benedict flew from the Los Angeles area, vibraphonist Ted Piltzecker from New York City to team with the Mile High city's Patrick McDevitt (bass) and Paul Romaine (drums) for Askren and Benedict's twelfth album together and fourth as co-leaders. Was it worth the trip? In one listener's opinion, first-class tickets, no matter the price, would be cheap ...

6
Album Review

Dave Askren / Jeff Benedict: Denver Sessions

Read "Denver Sessions" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Los Angeles-based guitarist Dave Askren and saxophonist Jeff Benedict collaborate on their fourth album as co-leaders on the Denver Sessions, an exquisite ten-piece set of primarily original music recorded in Denver, Colorado. The leaders have been playing together for around thirty years in the LA area but, for some time, had wanted to perform with New York-based vibraphonist Ted Piltzecker and decided to make it happen with the help of drummer Paul Romaine who encouraged the move to Denver for ...

3
Album Review

Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: Home is Here

Read "Home is Here" reviewed by Troy Dostert


For the third recording from his Interconnections Ensemble, tenor saxophonist and composer Felipe Salles chose to put the artists first--literally. That is, he had extensive conversations with each of the guest musicians on the record before composing the pieces on which each would be featured, thus highlighting their own stylistic and personal characteristics. The result is a polychromatic, adventurous album that allows Salles' multidimensionality as a composer to flourish. And with top-shelf guests such as Melissa Aldana, Paquito D'Rivera, and ...

45
Album Review

Felipe Salles: Tiyo's Songs Of Life

Read "Tiyo's Songs Of Life" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Talk about remarkable origins; the music on Tiyo's Songs of Life, performed by tenor saxophonist Felipe Salles' quartet, was written by Tiyo Attallah Salah-El while he was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in a Pennsylvania prison. In spite of his circumstances, Salah-El never lost his love for life, an upbeat frame of mind that is ever-present in these nine sparkling originals. While imprisoned, he earned bachelor's and master's degrees and founded the Coalition for the Abolition ...

9
Album Review

Felipe Salles, Zaccao Curtis, Avery Sharpe, Jonathan Butler: Tiyo's Songs Of Life

Read "Tiyo's Songs Of Life" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Embarking on an errant path in his youth led saxophonist Tiyo Attallah Salah-El to life in prison, without the possibility of parole. That is about as grim as it gets, but Salah-El, rather than giving in to defeat, turned himself into a behind-the-bars composer, author and activist. He passed in 2018, but his music came to the attention of saxophonist Felipe Sallas via prison abolitionist Lois Ahrens, who had befriended the imprisoned saxophonist Salaah-El, and even provided him with fifty ...

5
Album Review

Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: The New Immigrant Experience

Read "The New Immigrant Experience" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Is it mere coincidence, or does the rise in the number of “concept" albums by jazz big bands signal that the trend is here to stay? Trumpeter Brian Lynch won a 2020 Grammy Award for his Journey Through Literature in Music, and there have been other tenet-based enterprises within the past year by Dan Jonas, John Bailey, Eric Weiss, the WDR Big Band, Marcus Shelby, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Chris Jentsch and others. Now comes The New Immigrant Experience, ...

4
Album Review

Dave Askren: Come Together

Read "Come Together" reviewed by Geannine Reid


Collaboration and teamwork are always essential elements in any effort that takes the total sum of the parts to create a collective outcome. This is even more so a part of the equation in music. Music is mathematics, but what makes the experience even more enjoyable is the creativity and heart that each player puts into the execution of the mathematically based language. This is immediately evident in Dave Askren and Jeff Benedict's latest project Come Together. The two leaders ...

8
Album Review

The Girshevich Trio: Algorithmic Society

Read "Algorithmic Society" reviewed by Jim Trageser


While nearly all of the buzz in the music press about the Girshevich Trio has been about the young age of drummer Aleks Girshevich--who was roughly 12 when this album was recorded, the second of his young life--sooner or later his career will be judged solely by his playing. That's the thing about prodigies--they grow out of it.And so while Jonny Lang and Mike Welch managed to milk the “young blues phenomenon" for a couple albums, eventually they ...

9
Album Review

Jim Stranahan Little Big Band: Migration to Higher Ground

Read "Migration to Higher Ground" reviewed by Edward Blanco


The big band sounds gets an infusion of swing and swagger on Migration to Higher Ground, a session of high-octane straight ahead jazz from Jim Stranahan's dynamic Little Big Band. The album has Denver-based saxophonist and educator Jim Stranahan leading a twelve-piece ensemble comprised of some of the best players in Colorado gyrating through six big band arrangements. In addition, the leader also includes four tracks recorded in a sextet format that also features son and drummer, Colin Stranahan of ...

2
Album Review

Felipe Salles: Uganda Suite

Read "Uganda Suite" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


In 2008 saxophonist/composer Felipe Salles offered up the superb South American Suite (Curare Records). The highly rhythmic ode to his home continent seemed a natural for Salles, who hails originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He now moves his focus to the east, across the Atlantic for the gorgeous Ugandan Suite, a collection brimming with surging rhythms and fluid reed work. The use of the “geographical suite" in jazz, going back to composer/band leader Duke Ellington with his suites ...


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