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Elizabeth Tombulian: Love's in Need of Love Today
by Nicholas F. Mondello
By the third track on Elizabeth Tomboulian's Love's in Need of Love Today , you discover three observations: that the album is probably going to be a rainbow of diverse grooves and textures; that Tomboulian is definitely adept at all of them; and that she takes great joy in doing so. The eleven ...
Christy Doran's Sound Fountain: For The Kick Of It
by Ian Patterson
Released shortly before turning seventy, Christy Doran's third outing with Sound Fountain finds the Irish-born, Lucerne-based guitarist playing as well as at any time during his fifty-year career. It marks a blistering return for Doran to electric trio terrain, following the experimentation of 144 Strings for a Broken Chord (Between the Lines, 2018)—compositions for twenty electric ...
George Cables: I'm All Smiles
by Peter J. Hoetjes
At a time when jazz is being pulled in every direction at once in search of a future some fear may not exist, musicians such as George Cables, Essiet Essiet and Victor Lewis are proving that, for those who listen, there is no place quite like the present. Essiet became the trio's bassist for its 2012 ...
Nature Work: Nature Work
by Mark Corroto
Jason Stein and Greg Ward are two stalwart Chicago musicians who continually stretch boundaries and search for new experiences. Stein, a devotee of the bass clarinet, maintains two trios, Hearts & Minds (with Paul Giallorenzo and Chad Taylor) and Locksmith Isador (with Jason Roebke and Mike Pride), plus his quartet with Joshua Abrams, Keefe Jackson, and ...
Shuhei Kokuryo: First Episode
by Jim Olin
For a debut album, First Episode displays a remarkable amount of self-confidence and inventiveness from its creator. Shuhei Kokuryo is an accomplished jazz saxophonist from Nagoya City, Japan. Heavily inspired by Charlie Parker, First Episode was written and recorded in New York wherein Kokuryo had his skills sharpened by Seamus Blake, who even co-wrote ...
Kristen Lee Sergeant: Smolder
by Dan Bilawsky
Sometimes it takes an entire album, or even a few, to appreciate an artist's depth. But in the case of vocalist Kristen Lee Sergeant, you can get there in a song. Her morphing take on '80s new wave outfit Spandau Ballet's “True," revealing a theatrical streak and some pure and pliable pipes, does the job and ...
Marcus Shelby: Transitions
by C. Michael Bailey
Considering ambition and musical vision, bassist/bandleader Marcus Shelby has a single peer: Wynton Marsalis. Both men have a healthy reverence for the past and big imaginations for large-scale works. Shelby is struck by history, much of which he incorporates into this larger works like Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011) ...
Thom Yorke: ANIMA
by Don Phipps
Radiohead's Thom Yorke has done it again—made another album that perfectly captures the alienation, hostility and isolation of this space in time. As the music on Yorke's ANIMA makes clear, the ability to stay optimistic about the future of any number of things—the human race, civilization, institutions, personal relationships—is likely a lost art. Instead, what remains ...
Richard Pena: Hey, Don Rey!
by Jim Olin
Puerto Rico-based composer/guitarist Richard Peña may be well-versed in Latin jazz but he isn't afraid to venture beyond the genre. Peña has a passion for setting the bar higher. With every release, he explores something new. On Hey, Don Rey!, Peña investigates post-bop and fusion sounds. What is most impressive about Peña's playing style ...
Vivian Sessoms: Life II
by Angelo Leonardi
Sliding doors. È consistente il numero di cantanti afroamericane che spaziano con disinvoltura tra i vari ambiti e stili della black music, giungendo fino al pop. I risultati sono anche elevati, come dimostra questo disco, ma resta il sospetto di un impegno programmato per adeguarsi alla volatilità del mercato. In molto pubblico attuale, ...
