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Jay Anderson: Deepscape
by Jerome Wilson
Bassist Jay Anderson has been a sideman for many musicians including Michael Brecker, Lee Konitz, Kenny Wheeler and Maria Schneider, but he hasn't led a recording session since the 90s.' He makes up for lost time here with a varied set of music that sometimes follows standard jazz orthodoxy and sometimes goes its own fascinating way. ...
Thomas Dahl & Court: Quilter
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Liner notes very elaborately explain the main musical concept that defines guitarist Thomas Dahl's first release with his own band, Quilter. Layers. Phrases are introduced by one instrument, then picked up and turned around by another while soaring guitar cries enter and find accompaniment by polyrhythmic percussion on drums. Though, here, accompanying doesn't only go in ...
Heaven & Earth: Live and in the Studio 1997-2008
by John Kelman
Yet another year, yet another characteristically detailed and chronologically contextualized King Crimson mega-box set. Except that 2019 is no typical year. And Heaven & Earth is no typical King Crimson box set. While Heaven & Earth: Live and in the Studio 1997-2008 completes (well, almost) the series of box sets documenting King ...
Marcus Shelby Orchestra: Transitions
by Jack Bowers
Although it is not alluded to anywhere, the centerpiece of San Francisco-based composer / bassist Marcus Shelby's latest big-band album, Transitions, is the evocative four-movement suite “Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues," which pays tribute to the all-black enterprises whose shining stars were barred from displaying their talents in the major baseball leagues until ...
Terkel Nørgaard: With Ralph Alessi
by Pat Youngspiel
Danish drummer and composer Terkel Nørgaard had American trumpeter Ralph Alessi in mind for this project even while writing and developing the 21 sketches, of which seven ultimately made it onto the rumbling and rolling of positive energy that is the accordingly-titled With Ralph Alessi. The ECM aesthetic, which Ralph Alessi is known for, is omnipresent ...
Avishai Cohen: Arvoles
by Roger Farbey
In the late 1990s, bassist Avishai Cohen was living and working in New York, having arrived a few years earlier from Israel. Out of the blue he received a phone call from Chick Corea which effectively changed his life. Not only did Corea offer Cohen a recording contract on the pianist's Stretch label, he also invited ...
Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, Paul Motian: When Will The Blues Leave
by Mike Jurkovic
The first posthumous Bley release since his passing in 2016, When Will The Blues Leave is a true dance of inquisitive equals. Recorded live at Lugano's Aula Magna in Switzerland in March of 1999, Paul Bley, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian celebrate their decades-long friendship and the virtuoso inspiration first heard on the trio's ever-exquisite reunion ...
Paul Flaherty: Focused and Bewildered
by Troy Dostert
Saxophonist Paul Flaherty has long been one of the foremost exponents of the fire-breathing, free-jazz tradition of Albert Ayler, Peter Brötzmann and Charles Gayle. He is certainly one of the most prolific, with scores of recordings under his belt. When he joins forces with frequent collaborators such as Chris Corsano, Wally Shoup or Bill Nace, the ...
Mark Alban Lotz: The Wroclaw Sessions
by Mark Corroto
Mark Alban Lotz is bringing sexy back into jazz with his trio recording The Wroclaw Sessions. The German born / Dutch resident draws from not only jazz but folk and classical influences for these nine tracks, four of which are originals. It's sexy because the music conveys a certain charisma or musical pheromone fashioned to affect ...
Peter Madsen's Storytellers: Curiouser and Curiouser
by Jerome Wilson
In 2018 Peter Madsen released Never Bet the Devil Your Head (Playscape), a fine CD by his jazz-classical hybrid group, the Seven Seas Ensemble, that was dedicated to the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. Now he brings the jazz half of the Ensemble together for another set of music based on classic literature, this time, Lewis ...
