Jazz Articles

George Duke: The Complete 1970s Epic Albums Collection

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 8, 2012

The George Duke Band: The Complete 1970s Epic Albums Collection compiles the six albums that keyboardist, bandleader, composer, arranger and producer George Duke released on Epic Records between 1977 and 1979, accompanied by extensive and reflective notes on each album personally written by Duke, who wrote, arranged and produced just about every track. As an instrumentalist, Duke strongly resembles one of his most famous employers, soul-jazz saxophonist and bandleader Cannonball Adderley: Duke plays in an enthusiastic and compelling ...

The Complete 1970s Epic Albums Collection

by Chris May
February 27, 2012

The six albums comprising this collection of George Duke's 1977-80 Epic releases are of uneven quality—as the keyboardist himself acknowledges in the liner booklet—but they make an interesting historical artifact. From a “jazz" point of view, five of the discs approach irrelevance, but the sixth, 1980's samba-informed A Brazilian Love Affair, is a classic which still has alluring legs. The back-story: Duke is one of those keyboard players who began their careers in the mid-1960s playing acoustic ...

Sade: The Ultimate Collection

by Jeff Winbush
May 29, 2011

Did the world really need a new Sade “best of" album? Possibly, since it has been 17 years two albums of new material since The Best of Sade (Epic,1994). The timing of The Ultimate Collection is in no small part related to the fact Sade is off on her first world tour in a decade; since Soldier of Love (Epic, 2010) is a year old now she needed to put out “new" product to whet the appetite of the fans.

Sade: Soldier Of Love

by Jeff Winbush
February 27, 2010

The best thing about Sade Adu is also the worst thing about Sade Adu: her near fanatical commitment to consistency. There's no difference between vintage Sade and contemporary Sade. She's the antithesis of the snowfall cliché: with Sade you always know exactly what you're going to get. Soldier of Love is Sade's first album in a decade, and only the sixth by the group in 25 years. Flooding the market with material is not a crime Adu can ...

Horace Silver: Silver's Blue

by Samuel Chell
June 18, 2006

Horace Silver has always been an effective, if limited, catch-phrase soloist, an exemplary hard bop accompanist, and a brilliant miniaturist as a composer, contributing pieces that continue to surface and surprise with their inventive, irresistible melodies and inviting harmonic progressions. Unfortunately, the popular and critical success Silver realized with 1964's Song for My Father led to more of the same--formulaic tunes like the title song, restricted solo space for his musicians, and stiff presentations (the three times I caught him ...

Horace Silver: Silver's Blue

by Jim Santella
October 24, 2005

Recorded in July of 1956, Silver's Blue expresses the true meaning of the blues. Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, and Joe Gordon “sing out" with a spirit true to the form as pianist Horace Silver sculpts Jazz Messenger empathy from his quintets. Half of the session comes from the leader's composing pen, “Hank's Tune" comes from Mobley's pen, and the others are standards. Silver's piano weaves the tradition of jazz through each selection with care. As a blues-based program, ...

Jane Monheit: The Season

by Jim Santella
October 11, 2005

It's that time of the year: time to enjoy our favorite Christmas songs and other traditional holiday songs that have left their imprint. Jane Monheit brings us these and much more with her holiday album, also including a few surprises along with the usual fare.

Her warm voice gives the album a cozy feeling. “Moonlight in Vermont," “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and Donny Hathaway's “This Christmas" provide the kind of soulful emotions that linger. Up-tempo romps ...

Kaki King: Legs to Make Us Longer

by Andrew Durkin
March 21, 2005

Kaki King plays the drums. Oh, I know, on the inside sleeve of her latest CD, Legs to Make Us Longer, she quietly lists her instrument as “guitar." And stumbling unawares into the preamble of one of her live shows, you might reasonably assume (before you hear anything) that you're about to get an evening of sensitive folk profundity. After all, that does look like an acoustic guitar in her lap. But these are carefully constructed illusions. Once you close ...

Jeff Beck: Live At BB King Blues Club

by Doug Collette
March 5, 2004

Leave it to Jeff Beck to make a brand new recording available only online within six months of his last studio release. Live is an erratic but nevertheless brilliant piece of work by an erratic and brilliant artist.Recorded last September at BB King's House of Blues in New York, this CD constitutes a reunion of Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop trio. Playing with keyboardist Tony Hymas and drumming monster Terry Bozzio, the iconoclastic British guitar icon revisits, albeit somewhat ...

Jeff Beck: Jeff

by Doug Collette
November 6, 2003

Ever since his days with The Yardbirds, Jeff Beck has positioned himself as an experimentalist with the electric guitar. Through his pioneering days as a heavy rocker (Truth, Beck-Ola) as well as his groundbreaking fusion efforts (Blow by Blow, Wired), the iconoclastic Brit has displayed almost a tangible hunger to find new sounds. Little surprise then that he's been exploring the electronica terrain for his last three projects, including the recently released Jeff.Beck has left much of the ...