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Greg Abate & The Tim Ray Trio: Gratitude: Stage Door Live @ the Z
by Rob Rosenblum
If you are going to be a bebop purist, you have to resist the temptation to dress your music up to appeal to the masses. Greg Abate is one of those brave souls who worship at the altar of Charlie Parker, and depends on pure inspiration to capture his audience's attention. Gratitude: Stage Door ...
Gerry Gibbs Thrasher People: Our People
by Jack Bowers
Our People, the twelfth album as leader by multi-instrumentalist Gerry Gibbs, is difficult to describe and even harder to pigeonhole. Is it jazz? Not really. Is it world music? Sometimes. And sometimes even other-worldly. Stream of consciousness? Perhaps, but always with a specific plan in mind. Tone poems? Only in the sense that there are times ...
Greta Matassa: Portrait
by Paul Rauch
Greta Matassa has made choices in her career that have sacrificed some visibility in exchange for lifestyle. Yet the Seattle based vocal artist has established herself firmly as one of America's finest singers, and one of the best that jazz has to offer in the new century. To this point, the jazz public at large had ...
Jonny Mansfield: Elftet
by Roger Farbey
Even within the relatively short time span of his burgeoning career, vibraphonist and composer Jonny Mansfield has amassed an impressive array of music prizes. These include the prestigious Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize from the Royal Academy of Music which made this recording possible. But far from resting on his laurels, Mansfield has been busy gigging throughout ...
Brandee Younger: Soul Awakening
by Mike Jurkovic
Sure the recording for Soul Awakening was completed in 2013, but we are more than fortunate that harpist Brandee Younger and producer/bassist Dezron Douglas have chosen now to free this music from the vaults. For Soul Awakening brings a defining clarity to what we've experienced on previous releases, such as the raw, groove/fusion of 2014's The ...
The Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: Along for the Ride
by Jack Bowers
On the third album as leader of his superlative New York-based Jazz Orchestra, trombonist Pete McGuinness proves again that he is one of the more astute and resourceful composer / arrangers on the scene today. From “Put on a Happy Face" through “One for the Maestro," McGuinness' impressive charts are decorous models of warmth and perception. ...
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: Ancestral Recall
by Karl Ackermann
It's rare to see Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah's name without some derivation of “architect" affixed to it. It's appropriate. The New Orleans trumpeter and composer—like his peers Kamasi Washington and Ambrose Akinmusire—is part of a wave of jazz musicians determined to keep the genre's momentum moving forward. Adjuah's Ancestral Recall seeks to dismiss notions of identity-based ...
Chris Mondak: Eternal Youth
by Don Phipps
New England Conservatory of Music student Chris Mondak's Eternal Youth harkens back to early and hard-bop eras. Mondak, who has studied with Dave Holland and Cecil McBee, composed all of the songs (with the sole exception of “Be Honest with Yourself," which was co-written with his grandfather, Art Mondak). The music has a West Coast—Pacific Jazz ...
Peter Madsen: Curiouser and Curiouser
by Mike Jurkovic
There are times when star ratings don't tell or can't tell the whole story. Five stars, four, three, two, billions upon billions of stars. Veteran pianist Peter Madsen's Curiouser and Curiouser is just one of those times. It's a great listen but is it an essential one? Without being too harsh, no. Is it a disc ...
New York Standards Quartet: Heaven Steps to Seven
by Maurizio Zerbo
Come il titolo sottointende questo è il settimo CD delNew York Standards Quartet, in cui è entrato a far parte l'eccellente contrabbassista Ugonna Okegwo. La rivisitazione degli standard jazzistici qui proposta raggiunge buoni livelli, ma non tali da far gridare al miracolo. Il procedimento della destrutturazione degli evergreen è oggi ampiamente noto e ben documentato dalla ...
