Home » Search Center » Results: Album Reviews
Results for "Album Reviews"
John Bailey: Can You Imagine?
by Jack Bowers
Letting his imagination roam free, trumpeter John Bailey envisions a world in which one of his musical touchstones, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, is president of the United States--one in which Gillespie's cabinet includes Duke Ellington (secretary of state), Louis Armstrong (secretary of agriculture) and Miles Davis (CIA director). The fact is, Gillespie did “run" for president in ...
Eldar Djangirov: Rhapsodize
by Jim Worsley
Riding the crest since his powerful mid-2000s debut, pianist Eldar Djangirov entertains with a myriad of styles, shapes and colors. They all seem to fit him as well as personally designed piano shoes. It falls short to say that this record is dynamic. It fuses genres into a singular, yet wide, creation that features seven original ...
JD Walter: Dressed in a Song
by Victor L. Schermer
JD Walter is a consummate vocalist who has devoted himself over many years to evolving a unique style that is nevertheless ensconced in the jazz tradition. The public relations sheet for this new CD states that “this is his first release since recovering from a life-threatening heart condition and surgeries on his heart and vocal cords." ...
Centazzo, Schiaffini, Armaroli: Trigonos
by Neri Pollastri
Disco d'improvvisazione dal procedere quieto, quasi emotivamente metafisico, e dalle sonorità nitidamente scintillanti, questo lavoro vede all'opera tre grandi interpreti del genere quali il percussionista Andrea Centazzo, il vibrafonista Sergio Armaroli e il trombonista Giancarlo Schiaffini. Le prime quattro tracce vedono duettare percussioni e vibrafono: il suono complessivo che ne scaturisce oscilla tra il ...
Shabaka & the Ancestors: We Are Sent Here By History
by Chris May
Reed player Shabaka Hutchings became the first British musician to sign to the iconic (for once the word is justified) Impulse! label when his band Sons of Kemet did so in 2018. It was a deal for which his management could rightly be proud. It was also an affirmation which Hutchings felt deeply, for in the ...
Ayman Fanous / Frances-Marie Uitti: Negoum
by Karl Ackermann
The very flexible tone systems of the Middle East and Southern Asia have influenced Western music for decades. From John Coltrane to Jimmy Page and George Harrison, the sounds of those regions have often successfully fused with the disciplined beat of the West. Egyptian-born, New York-based guitarist and bouzouki player Ayman Fanous and American-born, Paris-based cellist ...
Anders Jormin: Poems for Orchestra
by Neri Pollastri
Suggestivo e inusuale lavoro del contrabbassista svedese Anders Jormin, uno dei grandi interpreti scandinavi dello strumento, questo Poems for Orchestra mette in musica una serie di poesie dedicate alla natura, avvalendosi della Bohusiän Big Band e, come solisti, della cantante svedese Lena Willemark—ben nota per i suoi lavori in equilibrio tra folk, improvvisazione e contemporanea, editi ...
Melaine Dalibert: Anastassis Philippakopoulos: piano works
by John Eyles
This album is the tenth released by the Elsewhere label since its launch in the spring of 2018. It is the third of those ten to feature the French composer and pianist Melaine Dalibert. Whereas on the previous two albums, Dalibert played his own compositions, here he performs piano compositions by the Greek composer Anastassis Philippakopoulos ...
Matthew Shipp String Trio: Symbolic Reality
by Karl Ackermann
Of the many formations in which Matthew Shipp works, his string trio is one of the most eclectic and appealing. Mat Maneri, William Parker and Shipp have covered the breadth of progressive improvised music from chamber to noise. Shipp has dabbled in electronica and hip-hop, but more often in the genre-less manner which makes him stand ...
Aron Namenwirth / Daniel Carter / Joe Hertenstein / Zach Swanson: Live At The Bushwick Series
by John Sharpe
This instalment of the Live At The Bushwick Series offers a communiqué from the front line of free jazz in New York City. It's the sort of below the radar activity which is rarely documented, but nonetheless deserves to be heard. In this particular case, it's also part of an ongoing event, curated by saxophonist and ...
