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Pierre de Bethmann Quartet: Agapé
by Artur Moral
Pierre de Bethmann's selection as best “Artiste instrumental(e)" at the 2024 Victoire du Jazz Awards (the Grammy Awards' French equivalent) stands as a major victory for the restless and sophisticated pianist and composer from Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris. A recognition that, beyond rewarding a professional career that has now completed its third decade, is also a deeply ...
Jakub Paulski: Free' Odde
by Ian Patterson
After the genre-slippery trio album Preludium (Jazz Sound, 2020), which drew from Jimi Hendrix, Bill Frisell, Dmitri Shostakovich and Henrik Wieniawski--modernists all--for inspiration, Polish guitarist Jakub Paulski stretches his compositional palette in a more personal direction on Free' odde. In settings that switch between nimble trio intimacy and large (ish) ensemble ambition Paulski leans towards a ...
Iro Haarla Ouranos Quartet, featuring Aija Puurtinen: Under the Firmament
by Dan McClenaghan
Finnish pianist Iro Haala has a gift for assembling superb jazz ensembles. Her on-record successes--including Kolibri (TUM Records, 2015) and Vespers (ECM Records, 2011)--are brought together, in part, by “considering the chosen musicians' Individualism and soloistic assurance." Duke Ellington did that. So did Charles Mingus. Forming a combination of different personalities, adept at music and possessing ...
Thomas Marriott: Screen Time
by Paul Rauch
Seattle-based trumpeter Thomas Marriott has been producing notable jazz recordings for more than a quarter century now with remarkable consistency in terms of both musicianship and composition of original works. After a decade in New York as a young musician, following his winning of the prestigious Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition, Marriott settled back in ...
Stephen Guerra: No Balanço do Choro-Samba
by Katchie Cartwright
Guitarist Stephen Guerra was finishing up his undergraduate degree in engineering when he became enchanted with Brazilian music. It was the guitar and song magic of Baden Powell with its mysterious metric ambiguity. Upon graduating, he took a job in personal wealth management, teaching himself to play guitar and read music on the side. After a ...
Isaac Hayes: Truck Turner
by Richard J Salvucci
If a listener has not seen the film “Truck Turner," (1974) there is perhaps no way that any of this review can make sense. And, alas, if you have seen “Truck Turner," there is little anything anyone can do to help. This is a movie that was part of a subgenre, Blaxploitation movies, that could scarcely ...
Jackie McLean: Let Freedom Ring to Destination...Out! Revisited
by Stefano Merighi
Rivisitando la vita e la carriera dell'altosassofonista e compositore Jackie McLean, mi viene naturale avvicinarle a quelle di Paul Bley. Entrambi hanno iniziato da ragazzini, conoscendo i maestri e suonando con loro; sia McLean che Bley hanno potuto affinare la propria personalità accanto ai più grandi creatori di jazz (Hawkins, Parker, Mingus, Rollins, Davis, Coleman, tra ...
Tania Grubbs: The Sound of Love
by John Chacona
Meet a person from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and you are likely to get a Chamber of Commerce-worthy commendation of their city's greatness. When it comes to jazz, the civic pride is more than warranted; the Steel City was home to immortals such as Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Art Blakey and Kenny Clarke. Vocalist Tania Grubbs grew ...
Allyson Briggs: Promises, Promises and Raindrops
by Richard J Salvucci
Allyson Briggs describes herself as an “old soul" who connected almost instinctively to the music of the 1970s. Her models are Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald, bearers of a very different musical culture than what is currently on offer. She is part of a different era, of not exactly big band singers, but of the sort ...
Keith Jarrett: The Old Country: More from the Deer Head Inn
by Alberto Bazzurro
Disco come sempre di gran classe, questo, inciso il 16 settembre 1992 al Deer Head Inn di Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, con Paul Motian in luogo del “canonico" Jack DeJohnette, ma con immutate le stimmate del già celeberrimo (nonché celebratissimo) standard trio di un Keith Jarrett all'epoca quarantasettenne e nel pieno della sua maturità tecnico-espressiva.
