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Melbreeze: I Love Paris
by Jim Worsley
"I Love Paris" declares Melbreeze in song. It fucking sizzles" she exclaims, adding just a tad of creative expression to the lyrics of Cole Porter. The delightful ambiance of France was the perfect vacation spot (if only in one's mind) to celebrate the unveiling of her tenthyes, its been that many-- record. Melbreeze ...
Professor Aucoin & the Jazz Scientists: Mystified
by Jack Bowers
There is a heap of soul, blues, rock, funk and heart on Professor Tim Aucoin's album, Mystified. On the other hand, the jazz content is in rather short supply. The Jazz Scientists are good at what they do, but what they do is more akin to a nightclub act than a jazz performance, at times reminiscent ...
Lara Solnicki: The One And The Other
by C. Michael Bailey
Among feelings are nervousness and anxiety. While synonymous in any thesaurus, the two words differ in the same way that thankfulness and gratitude differ, that is, in focus. Nervousness and thankfulness often have no focus, no definite object creating them. Anxiety and gratitude are those feelings, those reactions to the specific. Something clearly gives rise to ...
Archie Shepp & Jason Moran: Let My People Go
by Mark Corroto
Now an octogenarian, Archie Shepp's name is quite often spoken in the same sentence as that of John Coltrane. Shepp was born a decade after Trane and is associated with the great one's 'New Thing' and 'Fire Music.' His music though, post-Ascension (Impulse!, 1965), might be better equated to that of Billie Holiday, who was born, ...
Andy Hague's Double Standards: Release
by Chris May
English musicians pay a price for living outside Londonthe country is too small to support more than one major metropolitan music hub, even in the digital age. The old adage out of sight, out of mind still applies. Trumpeter and record label director Matthew Halsall's Manchester-based Gondwana operation, and the vibrant spiritual jazz scene which is ...
Cowboys & Frenchmen: Our Highway
by Jack Bowers
Okay, the name may be rather out of the ordinary (Cowboys & Frenchmen?), but once past that, what remains is a burnished New York City-based quintet whose music might best be described as decidedly liberated and contemporary. This isn't free" jazz wherein each member of the group goes his own separate way; there is, however, a ...
Theo Bleckmann & The Westerlies: This Land
by John Chacona
Could This Land, from Theo Bleckmann & The Westerlies be the first great musical declaration of the Biden Era? If so, it's probably an accident. When they tracked This Land in August 2019, Bleckmann and the brass quartet entered the studio with a program of protest songs. But in degree and kind, they are ...
Ohad Talmor: Long Forms
by Glenn Astarita
New York City-based tenor saxophonist, composer, arranger Ohad Talmor and associates provide all the 'jazz' news fit to hear on this superb effort, comprised of thorny time signatures, shifting detours and offbeat mini-grooves, enamored with the leader's whizzing solos and more goodness. Acclaimed due to his arrangements for the late sax great Lee Konitz and affiliations ...
Solstice: Food For Thought
by Chris May
An off-the-wall and extraordinarily beautiful album, Food For Thought is London sextet Solstice's follow-up to Alimentation (Two Rivers), a niche-jazz landmark in 2016. The album blends jazz with prog-rock and tropicalia-like psychedelia. It is intricate, lyrical and wildly inventive. It is also technically demanding and forensically arranged, yet it all sounds effortless. It is, most of ...
Richard Howell: Moon Over Tiburon
by Jack Bowers
After easing past the words of praise for San Francisco Bay-area based saxophonist / educator Richard Howell's spiritual connection" and the description of his work as bridge music," uniting and merging the experiences of listeners, it sounds much like probative contemporary small-group jazz. Besides playing saxophone (and singing, on the soulful anthem We Are All Connected"), ...

