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Jeremy Levy Jazz Orchestra: The Planets: Reimagined
by Jack Bowers
The Planets, a picturesque seven-movement suite written more than a hundred years ago (1914-16) by the English composer Gustav Holst, has been marvelously Reimagined in a present-day framework by film scenarist Jeremy Levy and his superlative Los Angeles-based Jazz Orchestra in a medley that safeguards the tantalizing flavor of the original while adding sufficient seasoning and ...
Spanish Harlem Orchestra: The Latin Jazz Project
by Mark Sullivan
When last heard from, the salsa powerhouse Spanish Harlem Orchestra was celebrating fifteen years of playing together with Anniversary (ArtistShare, 2018). There have always been elements of Latin jazz in the group's music, and Artistic Director Oscar Hernández is a noted Latin jazz pianist, so it was only a matter of time until they presented a ...
Quin Kirchner: The Shadows and The Light
by Kevin Press
Add Chicago's Quin Kirchner to the growing list of young jazz artists who've dropped impressive multi-disc releases in recent years. It has become a kind of rite of passage for a new breed of heavy hitters, these double-and triple-album sets. They are not vanity projects. Not the good ones, anyway. They come from deep pools of ...
Hans Ulrik & Anders Mogensen: The Meeting with Steve Swallow
by Thomas Fletcher
The partnership between Danish saxophonist Hans Ulrik and American bassist Steve Swallow can be traced back to the late '90s when they toured Europe and recorded three albums including Tin Pan Aliens (Stunt Records, 2005). Meanwhile drummer Anders Mogensen's collaboration with Swallow also began in the '90s, his busy calendar saw him perform alongside musicians such ...
Gerald Beckett: Mood
by Chris M. Slawecki
Flautist, bandleader and composer Gerald Beckett picks up on Mood where he left off from 2017's Oblivion (Summit), a stellar collection of songs by Miles Davis, Ellis Marsalis, Astor Piazzolla, Gerry Mulligan and other great jazz composers. Beckett wrote several new originals for his new Mood, including personal remembrances of hometown haunts such as Club Raven" ...
Dominic Ingham: Role Models
by Ian Patterson
Jazz violinists' role models tend to follow a familiar continuum that runs roughly from Stuff Smith and Stéphane Grappelli to Jean Luc Ponty and Didier Lockwood. British violinist/singer Dominic Ingham, however, paddles his own canoe. With a technique that draws as much from his folk and classical upbringing as it does from jazz, Ingham's idiom is ...
Jeb Bishop Flex Quartet: Re-Collect
by John Sharpe
Trombonist Jeb Bishop doesn't have a whole slew of leadership dates to his credit in spite of being active on the scene since the early 1990s. His most high profile gigs have been as part of the Vandermark 5, and also Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet, though he also has Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra and the ...
Sara Serpa: Recognition
by Jerome Wilson
A lot of people have started to come to grips with shameful parts of their national heritage in recent times. In America, that has meant protests against displays of the Confederate flag and monuments to Confederate Civil War generals. For Portuguese-born vocalist and composer Sara Serpa, dealing with her heritage has taken a more personal form ...
Masa Takumi: Heritage
by Robin B James
An amazing blend of modern orchestration and arrangement strategies with ancient Japanese Court sounds, instruments and vocals from previous centuries, a sound and rhythm resonant with multi-textured compositions that are friendly to the fingertips all the way to the toes for the beat, as well as to the ear for the groove. A feeling that carries ...
Aaron Parks: Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical Man
by Pat Youngspiel
Back with his second effort under the Little Big moniker, Aaron Parks stretches out the concepts that had been established on the group's debut recording and presents an even tighter display of original jazz meets pop blended instrumentals. As on predecessor Little Big (Ropeadope Records, 2018), each bar and every measure of each track have been ...

