Home » Search Center » Results: Album Reviews
Results for "Album Reviews"
Dayna Stephens Trio: Liberty
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Saxophonist Dayna Stephens, bassist Ben Street and drummer Eric Harland, together with two handfuls of original compositions, make Liberty a hip and bopping success. Who needs chords, when three voices and tones are able to interact so seamlessly and easily with one another--carefully planting ideas, picking them up and elegantly developing them over the continuing stream ...
Jonah Prazen-Johnson: Imagine Giving Up
by Karl Ackermann
When Jonah Parzen-Johnson released his first full-length album, Michiana (Primary Records, 2012), the Brooklyn-based artist seemed to give priority status to the electronics through which he filtered his baritone saxophone compositions. Even more so, Parzen-Johnson's 2015 follow up, Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow (also on Primary), was dominated by ambient drones. Parzen-Johnson has continued to ...
Chris Pitsiokos: Speak In Tongues And Hope For The Gift Of Interpretation
by Mark Corroto
Saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos, it might be said, was standing on the shoulders of giants when he recorded this solo alto saxophone concert in January of 2019. Indeed, these six tributes take into account the accomplishments of the esteemed masters and, from their shoulders, Pitsiokos enters some rarefied air. His Speak In Tongues And Hope For The ...
The MUH Trio: A Step Into Light
by Edward Blanco
One of Europe's top jazz trio groups is simply named The MUH Trio, with the acronym representing world-renowned Italian pianist Roberto Magris, and bassist Frantisek Uhlir and drummer Jaromir Helesic, both prominent on the European jazz scene, most notably in Prague. Though playing together for some time, A Step Into Light is the group's second album ...
Michael Vlatkovich 5 Winds: Five of Us
by Alberto Bazzurro
Ensemble (nello specifico quintetto) di soli fiati (non solo ance ma anche ottoni), come una volta era praticamente inaudito, dopo di che ci si sono misurati in diversi, e in tempi recenti quasi più nessuno: questa è la formazione a cui si rivolge il vulcanico trombonista losangelino Michael Vlatkovich per questo suo nuovo lavoro, peraltro inciso ...
Sylvain Rifflet: Troubadours
by Angelo Leonardi
In questo decennio il sassofonista Sylvain Rifflet s'è imposto tra gli emergenti più eclettici del jazz francese con dischi molto apprezzati, come l'audace Mechanics (Jazz Village 2015) e l'orchestrale Refocus (Verve 2017). In quest'ultimo ha voluto affermare la sua filiazione per Stan Getz (di cui rilegge l'album Focus) anche se la vicinanza è solo timbrica e ...
Ted Poor: You Already Know
by Chris May
Breaking news 3/23/20: Impulse! is getting its mojo back. Showing definite signs of, anyway... Since its glory days in the 1960s and 1970s, Impulse! has been little more than a logo wheeled out by its parent company, Universal Music, to lend credibility to unrelated one-off projects. Until very recently, the only newly recorded ...
Kandace Springs: The Women Who Raised Me
by Peter J. Hoetjes
Cover albums tend to sort themselves pretty neatly into two separate bins. One is filled with tiresome stacks of uninspired music soon to be filed away and forgotten. The other, smaller pile is made up of those few in which the artist on the cover managed to do something more than parrot their predecessors. Those who ...
Wojciech Lichtanski Questions: Iga
by Jerome Wilson
Wojciech Lichtanski is a young Polish saxophonist who works in several contexts as a leader and sideman. His music, on this CD with his band Questions, draws on the contemplative melodicism heard from many European musicians associated with the ECM label, as well as carrying its own frisky energy. Some of Lichtanski's compositions, like ...
Rebekka Ziegler: Salomea
by Tyran Grillo
Salomea is a genre-hopping group led by Cologne-based vocalist Rebekka Salomea Ziegler, and in this self-titled debut it reveals as much about what influences and inspires its members as about the newness those musicians can fashion from socio-cultural building blocks. Remarkable for such a song-focused project is how much each member stands out in relief. From ...
