Album Reviews
Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
DUCHESS: Live At Jazz Standard
There are a fair number of vocal groups blending harmoniously and swinging through the jazz set today, but none are as charmingly sassy as DUCHESS. With two studio albums already under a collective belt—actually three, if you include an under-the-radar Christmas set—it only made sense for vocalists Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner and Melissa Stylianou to finally show the greater listening community what Duchess does on the stage. Joining up with its regular rhythm section—pianist Michael Cabe, guitarist ...
read moreErnesto Cervini: Tetrahedron
Toronto-based drummer Ernesto Cervini juggles a lot of ensembles: the Turboprop sextet, a pair of co-led trios, MEM 3 and Myriad3, and chordless trio Tunetown. Add to that another trio, Tetrahedron, offing up an eponymous debut with guitarist Nir Felder and his Fender Stratocaster sitting in to add some electric chording to the mix, electric bassist Rich Brown adding a funkier vibe than is normally found on a Cervini project, and the Cuban-born and now Toronto-based saxophonist Luiz Deniz injecting ...
read moreDana Sandler: I Never Saw Another Butterfly
Tender is that memory nearly lost. Theresienstadt was a concentration camp and ghetto established by the German Schutzstaffel during World War II in the Bohemian fortress town of Terezín. Theresienstadt had two purposes: it was a coordinating center ahead of the extermination camps, and an erstwhile retirement community for elderly and prominent Jews intended to mislead their respective communities about German intentions. Camp conditions were engineered to hasten the death of its prisoners through inadequate diet and overwork, while the ...
read moreRymden: Reflections And Odysseys
Reflections & Odysseys gifts to the listening world the debut of pianist Bugge Wesseltoft's new trio—called Rymden—with bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus Öström. The rhythm section, best known as part of e.s.t. (led by the late Esbjörn Svensson), serves Wesseltoft with fresh purpose, at once grateful for what came before and eager to chart maps ahead. It's a dual aesthetic embodied not only in the album's title, but also in its approach to crafting sound as a realm in ...
read moreThomas Marriott: Trumpet Ship
In a day and age when social and personal narratives pervade the jazz recording medium, it is a welcoming feeling to experience a recording of superb jazz musicians playing music in the moment the way it's supposed to be played--for the people. For his spring 2020 quartet release Trumpet Ship (Origin, 2020), Seattle-based trumpeter Thomas Marriott has summoned a powerhouse quartet that hits hard from the outset and never lets up. He has convened a band that shares ...
read moreFunky Chemist: Groove Generator
You know where you are with organ / guitar / drums trios. The genre is among the most rigorously codified in jazz and has remained fundamentally unchanged since Jimmy Smith erupted on the US scene in the mid 1950s. In large part this is because the tonalities and textures of the Hammond B3 are finite and inflexible, while synths and digital technology in general have opened up limitless keyboard possibilities. The template Smith laid down on A New Sound, A ...
read moreJeff Parker & The New Breed: Suite For Max Brown
Guitarist Jeff Parker spent many years in Chicago involved in the city's fertile jazz and experimental music scene, primarily as a member of the AACM and the band Tortoise. In 2013 he relocated to Los Angeles. Since then, his music as a leader has combined a 70's rhythm and blues vibe with the sampling, electronic manipulation and serial techniques he was involved with in Chicago. This album, dedicated to his mother whose maiden name was Maxine Brown, shows just how ...
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