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Angles: A Muted Reality
by Mark Corroto
For Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen, all music is folk music. Proof of that statement is the Angles' release A Muted Reality. Whether he is referencing Balkan, African, Swedish, American jazz or Spanish dialects, he is drawing on kindred spirits in his music. With the various editions of his Angles projects, from trios to 10-piece small big ...
Juliet Varnedoe: Cajun Bleu
by C. Michael Bailey
New York City vocalist Juliet Varnedoe has developed a keen feel for the collective music of New Orleans. Her first single from her self produced 2022 release Cajun Blue, Mon Chéri" revealed an international approach to the regional music that freely mixed Dixieland with zydeco, the blues, and sleek Caribbean sounds, creating a languid, humid and ...
Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra: The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra
by Jack Bowers
The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra, co-led by pianist/composer Steven Feifke and trumpeter par excellence Bijon Watson, is a seventeen-member ensemble comprising seasoned players paired with young lions who are poised to capture pride of place. Nowhere do the leaders say who is in which group, and it would be impolitic to name them here. Suffice to ...
Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Mesmerism
by Hrayr Attarian
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is an idiosyncratic and restless explorer. An accomplished percussionist, he is known for blurring, if not completely erasing, the boundaries between the pre-written and the improvised. This has led him to work in a modern, Western Classical, idiom, albeit one rooted in the jazz tradition. After conducting the twenty-piece Alarm Will ...
Naama Gheber: The Very Thought of You
by C. Michael Bailey
Naama Gheber closes her 2022 summer season of singles releases with Ray Noble's 1934 composition, The Very Thought Of You." The song was first recorded by Ray Noble and His Orchestra with Al Bowlly on vocals for HMV in England in April, closely followed by Bing Crosby's performance that same year and enjoying many revivals since ...
Keith Jarrett: Bordeaux Concert
by Mike Jurkovic
Like so much of his renowned canonincluding Köln Concert, Bremen-Lausanne, La Scala, A Multitude of Angels (ECM, 1975, 1973, 1997, 2016) Bordeaux Concert feels like it has always been there. In the air, in the heart, in the quiet turnings of a world at large. Just waiting for one to encounter it and come to the ...
Columbia Icefield: Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes
by Jerome Wilson
Trumpeter Nate Wooley can create impressive large-scale compositions. His Seven Storey Mountain VI, (Pyroclastic, 2021) is a massive work, dealing with the rights of women, that used fourteen musicians and singers. His group, Columbia Icefield, achieves similar results with just four members, Wooley himself on trumpet and amplifier, Mary Halvorson on electric guitar, Susan Alcorn on ...
Tracye Eileen: You Hit the Spot
by Jack Bowers
You Hit the Spot is either the third or fourth album by sultry-voiced, Chicago-based vocalist Tracye Eileen. It was recorded in two sessions: one with a trio (and audience), the other with a sextet. She gets a good head start thanks to a splendid choice of material eight blue-chip tunes, all from the Great American Songbook. ...
Glenn Zottola & Chick Corea: The Legend & I
by Nicholas F. Mondello
With his untimely passing in February 2021, accolades emanated worldwide from musicians, critics and fans about multi-Grammy winner Chick Corea. What was less known then is the fact that Corea and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Glen Zottola were not only longtime close pals, but frequently interacted musically. The Legend & I is an artistic culmination of that friendship ...
Shawn Lovato: Microcosms
by Troy Dostert
Bassist Shawn Lovato's debut album, Cycles of Animation (Skirl, 2017), possessed a conceptual sophistication that went far beyond an imaginative slice of creative jazz. The same is evident on Microcosms, an album that involves giving his terrific ensemble the chance to develop minute gestures into larger, more determinate shapes. The constant ebb and flow that results ...

