Home » Search Center » Results: Album Review
Results for "Album Review"
Warriors of the Wonderful Sound: Soundpath
by Mark Corroto
If we alter President John F. Kennedy's 1962 moon spaceflight speech just a bit, it easily fits the big band adaptation of Muhal Richard Abrams' magnum opus Soundpath, We choose to perform this composition not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of ...
Fryderyk HD: Sounds Good
by Geno Thackara
Fryderyk HD clearly knows his stuff in the jazz world and, just as clearly, considers it a jumping-off point more than a home niche. His first outing has all the marks of a fresh mind whirling with a myriad of ideas, and ready to try them all on for size. Thankfully, it is also the kind ...
Ed Puddick / The Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra: Crazy Days
by Chris May
The opener / title track of this album could well be taken to refer to Britain's 2016 referendum on whether or not to remain in or leave the European Union, for the disc's second half, and its main event, is composer Ed Puddick's thirty-five minute The Brexit Suite." In fact, Puddick was thinking about something else ...
Cortex: Legal Tender
by Mark Corroto
The Norwegian quartet Cortex answers the question, what would have happened if the Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis, had advanced the jazz canon instead of looking backwards for inspiration. Remember when the two young lions burst onto the scene in the 1980s with their self-righteous mission to save jazz? They did so by stuffing it, much ...
Osmond Chapman Orchestra: There's More Where That Came From
by Richard J Salvucci
This slick and swinging pop recording is going to be a big hit with middle-of-the-road ears. As to the inevitable question, But is this jazz?" you can only shruga personal reactionand give the usual what is jazz" answer. Whatever it plays, the Osmond Chapman Orchestra is tight and punchy, featuring excellent ensemble work, some very good ...
Don Rendell Quintet: Space Walk
by Chris May
As British jazz reaches new and unprecedented peaks of popularity, major labels are revisiting their vaults and rereleasing artistically enduring but long unavailable albums. Universal/Decca's British Jazz Explosion: Originals Re-Cut is the most ambitious of such reissue programs to be announced so far in 2021. It concentrates on the years 1965 -1972, a pivotal period in ...
Space Quartet: Directions
by Mark Corroto
Listen closely to Directions by Rafael Toral's Space Quartet and try to ignore the voice in your head of June Tyson chanting, space is the place, space is the place." While this is an instrumental production and Toral was born more than fifty years after Sun Ra, a similar aura permeates these six tracks. It's not ...
Christopher Hollyday: Dialogue
by Angelo Leonardi
Il ritorno discografico di Christopher Hollydaya un quarto di secolo dall'ultimo discoè proprio una sorpresa. Chi segue il jazz dei primi anni novanta ricorderà il formidabile debutto del sax contralto non ancora ventenne in un disco da leader per l'RCA/Novus, accompagnato da Wallace Roney, Cedar Walton, David Williams e Billy Higgins. Un talento naturale dalla tecnica ...
Will St Peter - Steven Heffner - Steve Barnes: Honestly
by Jack Bowers
Smooth can be charming. Mellow likewise. And the same can be said for easygoing. On Honestly, guitarist Will St Peter's trio presents an hour of smooth, mellow, easygoing jazz that is both charming and tasteful. There are few fireworks here, simply three accomplished musicians calmly yet firmly expressing their collaborative point of view. ...
Joel Frahm: The Bright Side
by Dan McClenaghan
Chordless trio recordings featuring saxophone, bass and drums, no piano or guitar in the building, always draw comparisons to 1957 when a pair of the groundbreakers of the genre were recorded by saxophonist Sonny Rollins with A Night At The Village Vanguard (Blue Note Records, 1958) and Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957). Saxophonist Joel Frahm obviously ...

