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Janel & Anthony: New Moon In The Evil Age
by Glenn Astarita
The married duo of cellist Janel Leppin and guitarist Anthony Pirog are no strangers to pushing boundaries. Their collaborative work under the Janel & Anthony moniker has long been admired for its innovative blend of genres, and 2024 proves to be a particularly fruitful year for the duo. New Moon in the Evil Age arrives alongside ...
WHO Trio: Live At Jazz Festival Willisau 2023
by Chris May
This jewel of an album was released just too late for inclusion in AAJ's Best Jazz Albums of 2024: All-Star Break Edition, where contributors were invited to name their three best albums released during the first half of the year (the article can be read here). But five gets you ten that it will be included ...
June Yun: Enlightenment - Solid Waves
by Dan McClenaghan
South Korean vocalist June Yun's compositional debut, Enlightenment -Solid Waves, explores the feelings and emotions elicited by the concepts of light and dark. These things are difficult to describe in words but translate, with her music, into compelling, atmospheric soundscapes full of shadows, apparitions, angelic imagery and mystical moods. Vid Jamnic's resonant vibraphone murkiness lays a ...
MYL Trio: Parallel Universes
by John Eyles
Parallel Universes is the first album from the MYL trio, the group title incorporating the initials of the members' first names, Austrian violinist and vocalist Mia Zabelka, Japanese pianist and melodica player Yoko Miura, and British signal processing instrument player Lawrence Casserley. All three members have past experience of trio playing; Zabelka's own trio with bass ...
Mike Westbrook: Band of Bands
by Duncan Heining
For over six decades, composer, bandleader and musician Mike Westbrook has pursued a personal vision of jazz inspired by his hero Duke Ellington. That vision rests on the life-affirming, metamorphic potential at the music's heart. Band of Bands, built upon musical friendships old and more recent, is as fine a set of performances as any in ...
Jihye Lee Orchestra: Infinite Connections
by Troy Dostert
One of the most ambitious composers working exclusively in the large-ensemble format, Jihye Lee is now offering her third release, coming on the heels of the well-received April (Self-released, 2017) and Daring Mind (Motéma Music, 2021). Lee is a fearless artist with a seemingly limitless imagination, with a multiplicity of themes and rhythms swirling through her ...
Sam Newbould: Homing
by Dan Bilawsky
England-born, Netherlands-based alto saxophonist Sam Newbould uses the title of his third album to directly reference his temporary adoption of a Polish homing pigeon. But in a broader sense, Homing is about a man's pursuit to pinpoint his identity as an artist abroad. Zeroing in on that subject with clarity, sophistication, smarts, humor and a slanted ...
Sweet Megg: Bluer Than Blue
by Nicholas F. Mondello
One of the more niche genres in the history of jazz is western swing. Primarily dance music and hugely popular in the Southwest, it originated as a jambalaya blending hot jazz, country, blues, pop and traditional fiddle playing, performed by combos such as the Light Crust Doughboys and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. It incorporated ...
Peter Van Huffel’s Callisto: Meandering Demons
by Alberto Bazzurro
Quartetto geograficamente misto, quello diretto dal quarantaseienne (quasi) baritonista canadese Peter Van Huffel, con una trombettista italo-canadese, un pianista greco e un batterista tedesco. Molto coesa, compatta, illuminata (e guidata) da un'idea forte è peraltro la musica contenuta in quest'ottimo album, inciso a Berlino nell'ottobre 2022. L'idea di cui sopra si deve certamente al leader (tutti ...
Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention: Whisky A Go Go 1968
by Mario Calvitti
Lo sfruttamento dell'immenso, e apparentemente inesauribile, archivio zappiano procede al ritmo di 3-4 pubblicazioni all'anno, alternando riedizioni di album storici (le 50th anniversary edition" arricchite di nuovi contenuti) e dischi contenenti materiale inedito dal vivo o in studio, recuperato tra gli innumerevoli nastri accumulati da Frank Zappa durante gli anni di attività. Questa ...


