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The Michael Lauren All Stars: Old School / Fresh Jazz
by Jim Worsley
A second outing for drummer and composer Michael Lauren and his All Stars continues and strengthens their fresh path through intelligent modernism. Their brightly-lit road intersects again and again with a variety of classic jazz genres. This energetic sixteen-track outing is presented in a unique style. Interspersed between the songs are six short drum duets with ...
Arild Andersen / Clive Bell / Mark Wastell: Tales Of Hackney
by Roger Farbey
Tales Of Hackney features three leading improvisers, Arild Andersen, Mark Wastell and Clive Bell. Following a rare live performance at London's Cafe Oto in September 2017, the trio were inspired enough to proceed the very next day to Hackney Road Studios to produce the fifty minutes of transcendental music presented here. The renowned bass ...
Martin Fabricius Trio: Under The Same Sky
by Chris May
The vibraphone has come a long way—technically and aesthetically—since Lionel Hampton used it in a short, improvised introduction to Louis Armstrong's “Confessin,'" recorded with Les Hite's band in 1930. Back then, it was regarded primarily as a percussion instrument, and it is still categorized as tuned-percussion in the classical music world. Hampton was the first musician ...
Fred Hersch & the WDR Big Band: Begin Again
by Jack Bowers
Pianist Fred Hersch, who needs no introduction to most well-informed jazz enthusiasts, is by and large known as a leader of trios and other small groups. Begin Again displays another side of Hersch's appreciable talents: nine of his handsome compositions, astutely recast by six-time Grammy Award winner Vince Mendoza and impressively performed by Germany's superb WDR ...
Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra featuring Marilyn Crispell and Evan Parker: Parallel Moments Unbroken
by Matt Parker
For this album, living legends in the world of improvised music Marilyn Crispell and Evan Parker joined the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra as featured soloists in these recordings of two separate live performances of the same composition (hence the duplication of some track titles). Parallel Moments Unbroken was written by GIO founding member Raymond MacDonald, and commissioned ...
Mikael Mani: Bobby
by Franz A. Matzner
Icelandic guitarist Mikael Mani's debut release is a poised, rewarding set of original compositions inspired by events surrounding Bobby Fischer's capture of the world chess championship in 1972. Held in Iceland, the politically charged bout took place against the backdrop of the cold war and garnered worldwide attention. Less well known is the subsequent ...
Jaelem Bhate: on the edge
by Jack Bowers
At a time when many contemporary big bands are veering off-course, too often leaving jazz as we know and understand it as an afterthought, foundering and searching in vain for an anchor, it's comforting to encounter an ensemble that is not only as fresh as today's harvest but upholds such time-honored jazz traditions as melody, harmony ...
Greenville Jazz Collective Big Band: Welcome To Earth
by Mark Sullivan
Greenville, South Carolina boasts an active nonprofit jazz organization, the Greenville Jazz Collective. Musician-run, it offers an outreach program to local schools, presents concerts, and runs a monthly jam session. And there's the Greenville Jazz Collective Big Band, which once a month somehow squeezes onto the stage at Chicora Alley, a small upstairs restaurant and bar. ...
Ernest Turner: My Americana
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Ernest Turner could have gone after the Great American Songbook--Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Lerner and Loewe--a repertoire he has learned well. Instead, on My Americana, he turns toward the sounds that reflect how he grew up, music taken from the African-American experience, with tunes from Thelonious Monk, Kenny Kirkland, Stevie Wonder and Fats Waller, along ...
Jeff Williams: Bloom
by Roger Farbey
In a new departure, Jeff Williams has forsaken the quartet, quintet or sextet configurations of his previous four albums for Whirlwind in favour of this very convincing trio format. In tandem with this slimmed-down enterprise, he's employed a pianist and composer who is undoubtedly a rising star of jazz. Carmen Staaf graduated with a joint degree ...
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