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Gordon Grdina: Safar-E-Daroon
by Mike Jurkovic
Safar e Daroon germinates from its dark, submerged interiors immediately and immediately brings you into the light. But a light of what? A lover's lamp? A hushed arena? An Australian wildfire? Take your pick and let your mind go. It's all going to happen and does so in spades on oudist Gordon Grdina's second go-round with ...
Clairdee: A Love Letter To Lena
by Dan Bilawsky
A fixture on the Bay Area jazz scene, Clairdee has established herself as a self-assured singer and an artist who's never content in repeating an idea. Her first three albums move from the studio to the holidays to the stage, demonstrating a high level of comfort in disparate settings and seasons. This fourth project—a tribute to ...
Matthew Shipp: The Piano Equation
by Karl Ackermann
Matthew Shipp is like an engineer from another dimension. In three decades of making music, he maintains an inquisitiveness for expanding new dialects and an aptitude for blending composition and exploration. Marking his sixtieth birthday, The Piano Equation reveals the pianist contemplating past experiments if only as a platform for the future; a foundation for yet ...
Chris McCarthy: Still Time to Quit
by Paul Rauch
From 2017 to 2020, composer and pianist Chris McCarthy charted a path as a noted sideman for such notables as Jerry Bergonzi, Ben Allison and Jason Palmer. He was often seen performing with vibraphonist Sasha Berliner and in duet with vocalist Clotilde Rullaud. In short, he has gained a reputation for imaginative and supportive playing.
The Necks: Three
by Mike Jurkovic
With their stubbornly spiky, hold-onto-your-hat mindset firmly rooted, a high fever runs wild on Three, The Necks' twenty-first release in its thirty-three year, unhindered-by-genre career. It starts like most of the trio's existential, kaleidoscopic excursions do: some minimalist point of blurred melodic frenzy is acted upon and the rest becomes an amalgam of theory and system... ...
Omer Avital Qantar: New York Paradox
by Edward Blanco
Israeli bassist and composer Omer Avital and his group Qantar, offer their second album, New York Paradox, producing a musical sound in a unique, splashy and audacious style which is quite riveting. The uniqueness here extends to the members of this quintet who have formed a special bond which is quite evident when they are performing. ...
Iro Haarla, Ulf Krokfors, Barry Altschul: Around Again: The Music Of Carla Bley
by Neri Pollastri
Sontuosa rilettura di dodici tra le più belle composizioni di Carla Bley, quest'album nasce da un'idea del contrabbassista Ulf Krokfors, condivisa con la pianista Iro Haarla--che frequenta la musica di Carla fin dai tempi del conservatorio e che ha da sempre Paul Bley come modello pianistico--e poi concretizzata assieme a Barry Altschul, batterista nel trio del ...
Matthew Shipp: The Piano Equation
by Dan McClenaghan
A sixtieth birthday might be greeted as a time of reflection, a looking back on a life well-lived. Or it might serve as a call to action, as it did for pianist Satoko Fujii as she celebrated her sixtieth trip around the sun by releasing twelve albums in 2018. Matthew Shipp also answers the call to ...
Chip Wickham: Blue To Red
by Chris May
The marketing thrust accompanying Chip Wickham's third album emphasises an affinity between the disc and the late 1960s / early 1970s work of Yusef Lateef and Alice Coltrane. Certainly, Blue To Red ticks two boxes: Wickham puts aside his saxophone to play only flute and alto flute, whose seraphic tones were favoured by Lateef and Coltrane; ...
Dave Douglas: Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie At Zero Gravity
by Dan McClenaghan
The distinctive trumpet of Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993), with the idiosyncratic upward angle of its bell, is transformed into a starship on the cover of Dave Douglas' Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie in Zero Gravity, seemingly soaring above the stratosphere, in Earth orbit. Douglas has a history of nodding to past greats: pianist Mary Lou Williams on Soul ...
