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Steve Beresford and Angharad Davies: Trwst
by John Eyles
On March 6th 2020, Steve Beresford celebrated his seventieth birthday with a jam-packed three-day residency at London's renowned venue Café Oto, under the fitting heading “Piano, Noise, Music and Toys." (It was the last such event at Oto before its Coronavirus lockdown.) Across the residency, audiences saw a cross-section of performances which illustrated the breadth of ...
Keith Oxman: Two Cigarettes In the Dark
by Edward Blanco
With the impressive Two Cigarettes in the Dark, Denver-based saxophonist Keith Oxman delivers what is most probably one of the finest albums on the contemporary jazz scene today. Imagine being in a dark room where you see nothing and suddenly two cigarettes are lit; naturally your attention will be focused on the cigarettes and the smoke ...
Wolfgang Muthspiel: Angular Blues
by Mike Jurkovic
So much of Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel's music materializes before you like Mr. Spock and company on Star Trek. The music beamed in always airy and on the verge of evaporation. But before it does either manifest or vanish it leads you along a slippery slope, through brave structures where only the guitarist knows where the ...
Dionne Warwick: Déjà Vu: The Arista Recordings (1979-1994)
by Jakob Baekgaard
Every artist, even great ones, experiences peaks and valleys. When Dionne Warwick signed with Arista Records in 1979, she had nothing to prove, but her glory also seemed like a thing of the past. She was already a part of pop history with an unparalleled string of hits penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. In ...
The Westerlies: Wherein Lies the Good
by Hrayr Attarian
The dynamic and inventive brass quartet The Westerlies explores an eclectic array of pieces on its third release, the mesmerizing Wherein Lies the Good. Consisting of four jazz-leaning horn players, the ensemble, in addition to interpreting delightful originals, delves into the modern classical, art-rock and folk repertoires. The album opens with trombonist Andy Clausen's ...
MoonMot: Going Down The Well
by Bruce Lindsay
Six musicians from the UK and Switzerland, with a strong background in improvisation and a talent for mixing acoustic and electronic instrumentation, creating tunes which move from the gentle, Rhodes-led, intro to “35 Years" and the bass-sax interplay which opens “Threnody Of The English Polity" to the raucous baritone sax of the title track—that is MoonMot ...
Schapiro 17: New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60
by Jack Bowers
2019 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the Miles Davis sextet's acclaimed album, Kind of Blue (Columbia). While the tributes didn't exactly pour in, New York-based composer / arranger Jon Schapiro took it upon himself not only to revisit that classic session but to re-orchestrate it for a large ensemble (the Schapiro 17) and flesh it out ...
The Necks: Three
by Mark Sullivan
Live performances by Australian free-improvising trio The Necks typically take the form of a single, slowly growing and morphing mass of sound. On recordings the musicians give themselves permission to sculpt the sound, so it is not a real-time document. Nevertheless their two previous albums Vertigo (Northern Spy Records, 2015) and Body (Northern Spy Records, 2018) ...
Alexander Hawkins and Tomeka Reid: Shards and Constellations
by Troy Dostert
Although they have not recorded together previously, pianist Alexander Hawkins and cellist Tomeka Reid are both improvisers with omnivorous musical tastes and soaring ambition. Hawkins has fronted his own ensembles over the years—perhaps the most notable example being Step Wide, Step Deep (Babel, 2014)—but he's been active in freely-improvised contexts as well, working with everyone from ...
Alfredo Chacon: Bossing in the Rain
by Edward Blanco
Multi-instrumentalist and Latin-jazz star Alfredo Chacon presents a Brazilian-tinged package of light bossa nova and Afro-Cuban rhythms on the sensational Bossing in the Rain, adding to his ever-growing list of music as a leader and sideman. A major voice in the Latin jazz genre, and fixture in the Miami jazz scene, Chacon honed his skills on ...
