Home » Search Center » Results: Album Reviews
Results for "Album Reviews"
UNT One O'Clock Lab Band: Lab 2019
by Jack Bowers
UNT is the University of North Texas, home to the country's flagship Jazz Studies program since its inception in the mid-1940s, and home as well to no less than a dozen undergraduate big bands, each one named for its daily rehearsal time. Pride of place goes to the One O'Clock ensemble whose special artistry has been ...
Satoko Fujii & Tatsuya Yoshida: Baikamo
by Mark Corroto
Don't know how she does it, but pianist Satoko Fujii has released yet another compelling ensemble. Somewhere in between her solo performances, multi-continent large ensembles, quartets Kira Kira, Gato Libre and Kaze (to name just a few projects), she wrote music, toured and recorded with drummer Tatsuya Yoshida in 2019. Toh-Kichi isn't Fujii's first ...
DSC Band: Monk Time
by Chris M. Slawecki
MonkTime is Leon Lee Dorsey's first album as a leader in twenty years and in this case, patience truly is a virtue: The bassist's tribute to the legendary composer and pianist simultaneously debuts Dorsey's new band, a trio with guitarist Greg Skaff and drummer Mike Clark, the standard for contemporary jazz-rock and jazz-funk drumming who sticks ...
Ellery Eskelin/Christian Weber/Michael Griener: The Pearls
by Mark Corroto
It's Interesting that Ellery Eskelin chose time as the subject of his liner notes essay for this release, because his music has always had a feeling of timelessness about it. His discourse ranges from concrete sundials to wrist watches and atomic clocks to the abstraction of music's swing and stop-time improvisations. Without diving too deep into ...
Mat Maneri Quartet: Dust
by Glenn Astarita
The respective artists are firmly rooted in the modern vanguard of experimentation, improvisation and countless offshoots of the jazz vernacular. However, A-list bassist John Hebert is also a veteran of many modern/progressive jazz sessions but, as evidenced here, is also comfortable exploring the outside realm. Hence, the musicians dish out a rather somber and stoic chamber-jazz ...
Dave Bass: No Boundaries
by Chris M. Slawecki
In 2015, Dave Bass retired from the Office of the Attorney General of California after twenty years of service and returned to his first professional love—playing the piano, a career that a wrist injury forced him to abandon about thirty years ago. No Boundaries is the third release, and second for Whaling City Sound, in Bass' ...
Richard Howell: Coming Of Age - MANGAKU
by Neri Pollastri
Il sassofonista Richard Howell è una personalità musicale piuttosto singolare: nativo di Los Angeles, attivo dagli anni Ottanta a San Francisco, ha avuto per maestri sassofonisti come Justo Almario, specialista di latin jazz, e Don Myrick, degli Earth, Wind and Fire, per poi suonare con Don Cherry e Charlie Haden, ma anche con cantanti blues e ...
Satoko Fujii & Tatsuya Yoshida: Baikamo
by Dan McClenaghan
Some of pianist Satoko Fujii's most explosive music comes with her work with drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. Their duo outings under the name Toh-Kichi, including Erans (Tzadik, 2005) and Toh-Kichi (Victo, 2002) are raucous affairs that veer in an out of mayhem, as are their recordings with the Satoko Fujii Quartet, including Vulcan, (2001), Zephyros (2003), and ...
Buddy Rich: Just In Time: The Final Recording
by Chris May
There are few sounds in jazz as thrilling as a big band in full flight. And a big band led by Buddy Rich promises to send the listener's dials into the red. The live album Just In Time: The Final Recording delivers on the promise. When London club owner Ronnie Scott introduces Rich, he dispenses with ...
Chelsea McBride's Socialist Night School: Aftermath
by Franz A. Matzner
Carve out an hour to listen to Socialist Night School's Aftermath because the combination of big-band music and progressive, challenging lyrics demands it. There's no way to let either simply wash over the ears. The music is too blunt, the lyrics too developed and too integral to absorb passively. The follow up to the ...
