Home » Search Center » Results: Album Review
Results for "Album Review"
Dave Slonaker Big Band: Convergency
by Troy Dostert
Composer/conductor Dave Slonaker probably won't qualify as “prolific," at least based on recorded output alone, as he spends a lot of his time behind the scenes in film and television work—but one must appreciate the level of craftsmanship that he brings to his big band projects. His debut release, Intrada (Origin Records, 2014), received a well-earned ...
Billy Drummond and Freedom of Ideas: Valse Sinistre
by Jack Bowers
As one of the world's foremost jazz drummers, Billy Drummond manages to keep busy--so much so that Valse Sinistre, recorded in November 2021, is his first album as leader in more than twenty-five years, following the critically acclaimed Dubai from 1996. This time around, Drummond is at the helm of his Freedom of Ideas quartet: Micah ...
Eyal Vilner Big Band: The Jam!
by Jack Bowers
Simply leading a big band in 2022 is cause for celebration. Leading a big band as sharp and talented as Eyal Vilner's New York- based ensemble is cause for far more than that. Vilner, an Israeli-born composer, arranger and woodwind specialist, formed the band in 2008, one year after arriving in New York City. He has ...
Natsuki Tamura and Gato Libre: Sleeping Cat
by Karl Ackermann
Following the example of his partner and spouse, Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura has embarked on a year-long project of multiple, timed releases. Like his companion, Tamura has found that his trumpet is at home in numerous musical settings. One of his most popular ventures is the group Gato Libre which features Fujii on accordion rather than ...
The Jazz Professors: Blues and Cubes
by Jack Bowers
Yes, the Florida-based Jazz Professors, as befits the name, are smart—but don't let that throw you. They also swing in the best jazz tradition, even though their fourth album, Blues and Cubes, was inspired by the art of Pablo Picasso. Unlike Picasso's works, however, there is scant abstraction here; the Professors embody far more bop than ...
Gordon Grdina/Mark Helias/Matthew Shipp: Pathways
by Dan McClenaghan
Gordon Grdina, guitarist and oud player, has cranked things up into high gear in terms of CD release productivity. This is a good thing. When artists regularly release albums--two to four or five or six a year, which was common during Blue Note Records' heyday in the late 1950s and early 60s--their artistry evolves more quickly. ...
Blaise Siwula, Vattel Cherry and Jeff Arnal: Expositions of Freedom...Now!
by Derek Taylor
Under the unifying sobriquet of Expositions of Freedom...Now! the trio of Blaise Siwula, Vattel Cherry and Jeff Arnal is an aggregate that seizes the process of spontaneous composition as its central fuel source. Siwula and Cherry's association hearkens back half a decade to where the two met in a Cecil Taylor large ensemble. The saxophonist has ...
Charles Lloyd: Trios: Chapel
by Dan McClenaghan
Blue Note Records has a history of boasting strong stables of players. In the 1950s and 60s, we could look to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Wayne Shorter--and if ever there was an incomplete list compiled, that one is it. Time rolls on. Twenty years (or thereabouts) into ...
Matt Choboter's Hypnopompia: Sleep Inertia
by Doug Collette
In keeping with its title, these eight tracks of just over fifty-minutes comprise a waking/sleeping dreamscape where conscious thoughts crystallize. then turn amorphous in an engrossing cyclical pattern. The fourteen or so minutes of the two-part “Converging Diverging" elucidate the most literal instrumental explication of the concept: replete with far too much ornate detail to fit ...
Lars Scherzberg: Top Floor Encounter
by John Chacona
The first phase of jazz was characterized by melodic improvisation. In its second phase improvisers dealt with harmony and, in the current phase, density is the improviser's concern. So says Anthony Braxton—if I understand him correctly (if anyone does). If so, then Top Floor Encounter may be as characteristic of our time as Armstrong's “Weatherbird" was ...
Trending
In Tribute To...
Points of View: Celebrating Dave Holland
In Tribute To...
John Coltrane At 100: A Global Perspective
Jazz Raconteurs
Julius Hemphill: Marty Ehrlich and Tim Berne Remember a...
Interview
Boney James: A Simple Man And A Lifetime Study
Musician 2 Musician
Steve Coleman on Dave Holland
Interview
Miles Okazaki's Monkathon: The Complete Thelonious...
Reanimating Conversations Past
John Scofield: Meant To Be
VOTE!
