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Aldo Salvent: Ancestros
by Don Phipps
With its varied rhythms, much of Latin music possesses an erotic dance-like quality with romance never far behind. And on his album Ancestros, composer and saxophonist Aldo Salvent certainly gives credence to these generalities. The album is chock-full of music that glides through a variety of beats and patterns like a dolphin skating atop the ocean ...
Booker T & the MG's: The Complete Stax Singles: Volume 1 (1962-1967)
by Doug Collette
There have been other, more wide-ranging collections of the music of Booker T & the MG's—the three-CD, sixty-five track Time Is Tight (Stax,1998) most prominently—but The Complete Stax Singles Volume 1 (1962-1967) is comprehensive on its own terms. As is Real Gone Music's custom, the label has gone to great lengths to make sure the vintage ...
Michael Dease: Never More Here
by David A. Orthmann
Perhaps the most significant thing about Never More Here, trombonist Michael Dease's seventh outing for the Posi-Tone imprint, is the striking polarity of two of the disc's four outstanding tracks, “Mirror Image" and “Blue Jay." In a recording filled with compositions by J.J. Johnson, John Lewis, Jackie McLean and Jimmy Heath, pianist Renee Rosnes' ...
Gagliardi/Albrigtsen/Thornton/Thorén: The Trip
by Don Phipps
Those who like a cup of coffee or tea on a chilly morning will appreciate the warmth provided by the album, The Trip. There is a great deal of happiness in this music, and it bubbles and percolates like a champagne toast on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The performing quartet, comprised of saxophonist Gianni Gagliardi, ...
Mário Costa with Marc Ducret & Benoit Delbeq: Oxy Patina
by Glenn Astarita
Nascent Portuguese drummer Mario Costa fronts a wily and power-packed supergroup with the addition of French musicians Marc Ducret and keyboardist Benoit Delbecq on this audiophile quality album that could also be useful for demoing high-end stereo equipment. More importantly, the kaleidoscopic disposition of this trio spans pensive intricacies, booming cadenzas, otherworldly spatial effects, swirling ostinatos ...
Leon Thomas: Spirits Known And Unknown
by Chris May
Spiritual-jazz fans in London have had a good 2019. The music looms large in several of the most prominent bands on the city's happening woke jazz scene. On top of that, London's Gearbox Records released Mothership, an on-point album by singer Dwight Trible, who also played a memorable one-nighter at Ronnie Scott's club. ...
Matt Ulery: Delicate Charms
by Jerome Wilson
Bassist Matt Ulery works in several groups with differing approaches to jazz and art music. Delicate Charms features a quintet which mixes the romantic lightness of European classical music, the slippery unpredictability of jazz and the thrusting rhythms of progressive rock through a singular combination of alto sax, violin and piano. The CD's opening ...
Champian Fulton & Cory Weeds: Dream a little...
by Martin McFie
As pianist and vocalist Champian Fulton says, “ A duet is a unique setting." Released from the need for arrangements, she and alto saxophonist Cory Weeds were free to roam, relaxed into the music without even drums or bass to consider. A pianist and singer is more used to the isolation of solo performance, but an ...
Michael Zilber: East West / Music for Big Bands
by Jack Bowers
On East West, his first-ever big-band enterprise, Canadian-born saxophonist Michael Zilber leads world-class ensembles in New York City and San Francisco, which speaks volumes about his artistry and gravitas. Zilber not only plays saxophone on both bands, he composed eight of the fourteen numbers on this handsome two-CD set and arranged all of them.
Marc Edwards & Guillaume Gargaud: Black Hole Universe
by Don Phipps
Black holes are giant space predators—devouring light itself. Theory holds that, as one approaches a black hole's event horizon, time itself slows. So it is interesting that on their album Black Hole Universe, drummer Marc Edwards and guitarist Guillaume Gargaud have chosen to create five diverse yet similar spontaneous compositions which jettison time signatures and conventional ...
