Jazz Articles
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Eric Goletz: Standard-ized!
by Jack Bowers
If variety is on your wish list, you will find a lot to like on Standard-ized!, New York-based trombonist Eric Goletz's third album in three years. Group size and makeup are seldom the same, Goletz's charts traverse new realms, there are special guests to enhance the proceedings, and Goletz even enlists a six-piece string “orchestra" on several numbers. The strings accompany one of the guests, vocalist LaJuan Carter, on the Nat King Cole chart-topper, “Nature Boy," and ...
read moreEric Goletz: A New Light
by Richard J Salvucci
Eric Goletz is a virtuoso trombonist who also writes and arranges. On first hearing, his core band may put some in mind of Chase, Bill Chase's high-flying group that featured both vocals and technically demanding trumpet. Goletz has something similar going on. The music opens with “Prelude: Before the Light" and “A New Light," with a stinging solo by guitarist Henry Heinitsch. Goletz, it may be observed, is the logical outcome of jazz-rock and funk meets brass ...
read moreEric Goletz: A New Light
by Jack Bowers
Trombonist Eric Goletz, an in-demand studio musician and sideman in New York City for three decades, released his first album as leader of his own ensemble in March 2021, and quickly followed with the second, A New Light, wherein his core octet is bolstered by three trumpets, half a dozen horns and a five-member string section. Among his more well-known teammates are trumpeter Randy Brecker, pianist Jim Ridl, keyboardist Allen Farnham and drummer Steve Johns. Goletz' musical ...
read moreFalkner Evans: Invisible Words
by Doug Hall
Within the songs that make-up Invisible Words (CAP, 2021), jazz pianist and composer Falkner Evans is facing a profound loss and delivering an intricate and gorgeous musical response. Losing his wife and soul partner abruptly last year, after 30 years of marriage (she took her own life), Evans has found a way to create a reflective tribute and moving celebration of his wife's life. Returning to his instrument in the form of a well-worn piano, in the basement ...
read moreFalkner Evans: Invisible Words
by Dan McClenaghan
On May 19, 2020, pianist Falkner Evans' wife Linda took her own life. A crushing blow. He has responded to this tragedy by making the album he never meant to make, Invisible Words; the title was taken from a quote Evans found upon searching through his wife's writings: “Music Is the Invisible Word, made visible through sound," taken, perhaps, (and slightly misquoted) from Kate Mosse's 2007 novel Sepulchre: “Music is the invisible world, made visible through sound." The ...
read moreFalkner Evans: Marbles
by Jack Bowers
On his fifth recording as leader, pianist / composer Falkner Evans has expanded his group size from trio (the first three) and quintet (the fourth) to sextet with vibraphonist Steve Nelson added on three of the album's ten numbers, the first nine of which were written by Evans. Even though this was a one-off, Evans' teammates are skillful enough to make it sound like a working ensemble. One reason for this is that the rhythm section (bassist Belden Bullock, drummer ...
read moreFalkner Evans: Marbles
by Jerome Wilson
Pianist Falkner Evans has been gradually expanding the size of his recording projects. He started out with a couple of trio discs, then made one with a quintet. On this latest offering, he fronts a three-horn sextet scored to sound like a bigger and fuller unit. He uses a front line of Michael Blake on tenor sax, Ted Nash on alto sax and Ron Horton on trumpet, that is blended into a cool, reedy sound which ebbs and ...
read moreMargie Baker Sings with So Many Stars
by Chris M. Slawecki
Margie Baker didn't begin her career as a jazz and blues vocalist in the San Francisco area until she was nearly 40, but she made up for this delayed entry with endurance: She was often featured at the Monterey Jazz Festival and as in Festival road shows led by Richie Cole and the legendary James Moody (for whom Baker penned “Mood for Mr. Moody"). Baker also became one of Dizzy Gillespie's favorite vocalists and sat in with his band whenever ...
read moreMike Longo: Step On It
by Dan Bilawsky
If you want to hear what pianist Mike Longo enjoys, and how he thinks, you listen to his big band--The New York State Of The Art Jazz Ensemble--which is featured on Live From New York! (Consolidate Artists Productions, 2013); if you just want to hear Mike Longo, you listen to this trio. Step On It is the third go-round for this group, following Sting Like A Bee (Consolidated Artists Productions, 2009) and the trio-plus-guests To My Surprise ...
read moreMike Longo and the New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble: Live from New York!
by Jack Bowers
The fourth album by pianist Mike Longo's stalwart New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble is the first one recorded in front of an audience, in May 2013 at the New York City Baha'i Center's John Birks Gillespie Auditorium. On the one hand, Live from New York! offers the kind of spontaneity and high spirits a studio date seldom can; on the other, no less than three of its eight tracks are vocals, and their acceptance is a matter ...
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