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6
Album Review

Senri Oe: Class of '88

Read "Class of '88" reviewed by Neil Duggan


Imagine a superstar musician, someone along the lines of Ed Sheeran perhaps. Then imagine him giving up his lifestyle and commercial success just to re-awaken his love for the jazz musicians of his youth. You may think that was a difficult story to believe, but with J-Pop superstar, Senri Oe, that is exactly what happened. With 45 hit singles, numerous albums and a TV career, he had achieved mega-star status in Japan and had the celebrity lifestyle to match. At ...

6
Album Review

Triosence: Hidden Beauty

Read "Hidden Beauty" reviewed by David Bruggink


Triosence may not yet be a household name among jazz aficionados in the United States, but since the turn of the millennium, they have become a fixture of the German jazz scene. In addition to performing internationally, they take a distinctly cosmopolitan approach to their sound. Past albums have shown the trio intermingling aromas of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and Hidden Beauty is no different in that respect. However, its compositions are the group's most taut and ...

5
Album Review

Jo-Yu Chen: Savage Beauty

Read "Savage Beauty" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


The cover art of pianist Jo-Yu Chen's fourth album, Savage Beauty, is provocative and beautiful. So is the music. There is a sense of a “stepping up of the game," in terms of public persona and artistry. Chen has always taken the physical product—the hard copy of her CDs—seriously, beginning with her debut, Obsession (Sony Music Taiwan, 2009), through Incomplete Soul (Sony Music, 2012), then Stranger (Okeh, 2014). On Savage Beauty she embraces an over-the-top glamor mode in this regard, ...

8
Album Review

Bob Dylan: More Blood, More Tracks: The Bootleg Series Vol. 14

Read "More Blood, More Tracks: The Bootleg Series Vol. 14" reviewed by Eric Gudas


The challenge of finding something original to say about Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks (1975), the mother of all comeback albums, baffles even the most steely-eyed critic. But Sony has made the task easier with More Blood, More Tracks, the unfortunately titled, overpriced, but nonetheless revelatory fourteenth entry in the Bootleg Series. The six-disc Deluxe Edition contains all extant tracks for the album, recorded in 1974 over four September days in New York and two late December days in ...

2
Album Review

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Read "Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition" reviewed by Doug Collette


Given the voluminous prior excavations of Jimi Hendrix' vault, the producers of and contributors to the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition deserve some kudos. This 3-CD plus Blu-ray set compares favorably to similarly-conceived archive presentations released coincidental to it, specifically More Blood, More Tracks (Legacy Music, 2018), Vol. 14 of The Bootleg Series of Bob Dylan and the 50th Anniversary editions of The Beatles (Apple, 1968) a/k/a 'The White Album.' Yet even as this ...

11
Album Review

Till Brönner / Dieter Ilg: Nightfall

Read "Nightfall" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Trumpeter Till Brönner is widely lauded in his native Germany and throughout Europe. He has had broad success not only as a jazz composer and musician but also in film music, pop and country genres. Brönner has recorded eighteen albums as a leader and worked with Monty Alexander, Dave Brubeck, Al Foster, Joachim Kühn, Nils Landgren, James Moody, Aki Takase, Ernie Watts and many other noteworthy artists. On Nightfall, he is paired with countryman and bassist Dieter Ilg whose sole ...

5
Album Review

Van Morrison and Joey DeFrancesco: You're Driving Me Crazy

Read "You're Driving Me Crazy" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Van Morrison has been busy, releasing three recordings in quick succession, Roll With the Punches (Exile, 2017), Versatile (Exile, 2017), and presently You're Driving Me Crazy with jazz organist Joey DeFrancesco. At this point in his career, Morrison can pretty well sing what he damn well pleases. On his past several recordings, Morrison has revisited his catalog, recasting some of his older songs in new frames and You're Driving Me Crazy proves no exception. Revisited here are “The Way Young ...

1
Album Review

Li Xiaochuan: Initial

Read "Initial" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello


In China, one of the world's most ancient--and at times sheltered--civilizations, jazz music, which was once called “pornographic," has experienced a very robust re-emergence. For example, a recent multi-city tour in 5-digit capacity venues by Maestro Arturo Sandoval played to overflow SROs each night. And, there's even now a Blue Note in Beijing, a jazz club near the Great Wall, and many other jazz venues. Trumpeter Li Xiaochuan, a leading Chinese jazz/classical trumpeter and educator (he teaches ...

2
Album Review

Riccardo Muti: 2018 Neujahrskonzert New Year’s Concert

Read "2018 Neujahrskonzert New Year’s Concert" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


It is a yearly ritual. Rather than watch the ball drop on Times Square, I tune into my local Public Television station to watch the Vienna Philharmonic's annual New Year's Day concert. This yearly event features a different conductor every year, leading the orchestra through a program of waltz music, not the least of which comes from the famous Strauss family (Johann, et al. not Richard). Hell, there is even some polka and marching band music. Now, I know what ...

7
Album Review

Stacey Kent: I Know I Dream

Read "I Know I Dream" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Stacey Kent has practically done it all over the past twenty years, selling north of two million albums, putting her gorgeously delicate stamp on standards, introducing fresh tunes into the canon, racking up awards, and bringing her flawless voice to fans in more than fifty countries. But one thing she hadn't done prior to this point is record an album with an orchestra. Cross that one off the list now and bathe your ears in this spellbinding music.


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