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Eric Johanson: Below Sea Level
by Doug Collette
In choosing his side projects and production efforts, North Mississippi Allstars' Luther Dickinson has been as discerning as he has been diverse. Witness The Wandering, Sisters of the Strawberry Moon and New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers, to name just a few, and now add his collaboration with Eric Johanson to the growing list. The latter ...
OM: It's About Time
by Ian Patterson
In 1982, after five albums in ten years, Swiss free-jazz quartet OM called it a dayits four members, Christy Doran, Fredy Studer, Urs Leimgruber and Bobby Burri going their separate ways. A supposed one-off reunion in 2007 to open an exhibition on the youth movement of the 1960s and 1970s led to a successful series of ...
Nate Wooley: Seven Storey Mountain VI
by Karl Ackermann
From 2010 onwards, composer-trumpeter Nate Wooley has explored creative music as a solo artist and through a spectrum of collaborators such as Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Mary Halvorson, Ken Vandermark, and Matthew Shipp. These projects have been offset by Wooley's Seven Storey Mountain succession of releases; Seven Storey Mountain VI is a masterwork of expressionist passion and ...
King Crimson: The Complete 1969 Recordings
by John Kelman
There will, inevitably, exist some cynics who will dispute the first comment about King Crimson's long-awaited The Complete 1969 Recordings box set, but it's difficult to imagine it being anything but the plain truth. This is, indeed, the definitive final word on the band's first lineup, collecting multiple versions of its earth-shattering 1969 Island Records debut, ...
Soft Machine: Live At The Baked Potato
by Chris M. Slawecki
European progressive jazz-rock ensemble Soft Machine seems to have run through more lives than even the luckiest tomcat. They've been first-rate musicians at every incarnation, and it's heartening to hear John Etheridge (guitar), John Marshall (drums), Roy Babbington (bass) and relative newcomer Theo Travis (piano, flute, saxophone) sound so vibrant as well as accomplished on Live ...
Ben Wendel: High Heart
by Mike Jacobs
If Ben Wendel's fifth outing as a leader High Heart shows anything, it's that the saxophonist is ever advancing. While this may seem a fait accompli for a card-carrying member of the shapeshifting collective Kneebody, Wendel's worthy solo efforts have been notably more in a traditionally-sounding vein and thus his innovations were perhaps a bit less ...
Mark Wade: Songs From Isolation
by Dan Bilawsky
Despite the obvious alignment in terms of timing, circumstances and creation, this project didn't simply manifest itself in the moment. Mark Wade has always had a solo bass outing in his sights. He just didn't take firm aim and follow through until now. That belief in patience, ultimately, helped to yield rewards. Rather than work with ...
Josh Nelson: The Discovery Project: Live In Japan
by Chris M. Slawecki
In the golden age of television commercials, one commercial distinguished between a product that was popular because it was associated with good taste and one that was popular because it tasted good. The Discovery Project Live in Japan has nothing to do with canned food but it demonstrates pianist Josh Nelson's excellent taste in repertoire and ...
Mikkel Ploug: Balcony Lullabies
by Dan Bilawsky
Upset, isolated and frustrated during the early stages of the near-global COVID-19 quarantine, Danish guitarist Mikkel Ploug did what he does best; he picked up his instrument and started playing. Sitting on his balcony and reflecting on the moment, Ploug set beauty in strings, allowing his sound to hold aloft. His appreciative neighbors listened with rapt ...
Mike Barone Big Band: Brazil
by Jack Bowers
Brazil doesn't signify that the venerable California-based composer / arranger Mike Barone has gone Latin; it simply means that Brazil" is the opening number and the name Barone chose for the latest in his long-running series of remarkable big-band albums. No matter, as a Barone recording by any other name would be every inch as inspired ...

