Home » Search Center » Results: Album Reviews
Results for "Album Reviews"
Víkingur Ólafsson: J.S. Bach Works & Reworks
by C. Michael Bailey
Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has found himself soaked to the skin in accolades in 2019. It all began auspiciously enough with the pianist with Ólafsson beginning piano early, taught by his mother, a music teacher. Ólafsson eventually attended and matriculated from the Juilliard School in New York, with a Bachelor's and Master's degrees directed by Jerome ...
Carsten Dahl: Painting Music
by Chris Mosey
Danish pianist Carsten Dahl uses the liner notes for Painting Music to try to explain the process of creation. “The universe has a sound and rhythm," he says. “Everything moves forward, either powerful and explosive or modest and like slow shadows in a landscape." The words accompany a picture of Dahl with paint-stained ...
Sparky Parker: In the Dark
by Jim Trageser
Crafting the perfect riff has been the goal of every blues and rock guitarist since Jimi Hendrix first began channeling Albert King. Welding a memorable theme to jaw-dropping technique is the surest way for a budding guitarist to elevate his or her reputation. Houston, Texas' Sparky Parker's debut opens with one of those defining ...
Carsten Rubeling: Volk // People
by John Bricker
It is not often that production on an explicitly jazz release blends synths reminiscent of '90s video-game sound effects with drunken hip-hop rhythms. Despite a few rough spots, Carsten Rubeling's Volk//People deserves a healthy dose of praise for that. The Canadian trombonist's debut album on lo-fi hip-hop and ambient-music label Inner Ocean Records strikes ...
Ryan Porter: Force For Good
by Chris May
The Los Angeles jazz scene clustered around the community of session musicians known as the West Coast Get Down (WCGD), and its most prominent member (and now ex-session musician), Kamasi Washington, is a US equivalent of London's underground jazz scene. Both exist in parallel universes to the jazz establishment, both are culturally inclusive though peopled mainly ...
Nils Wogram Nostalgia: Things We Like to Hear
by Don Phipps
On Things We Like To Hear, trombonist Nils Wogram and his bassless trio Nostalgia explore a kind of Miles Davis cool to hot fusion. Wogram provides an expressive center to the outing, his playing running from bluesy drawls to punchy explosiveness while focused on the themes and range of rhythms found in the compositions.
The Doggy Cats: Daikon Pizza
by Mike Jurkovic
Daikon Pizza from pianist Tetsuro Hoshi and The Doggy Cats may never be anyone's idea of essential listening or on anyone's best-of list of desert island must-haves. It might not even sell north, south, east or west of Sunny's Bar, the band's main performance space, in Red Hook, Brooklyn. For jazz-phobic pet lovers and ...
Jamey Arent: The Back Burner
by Paul Naser
The name of Los Angeles based guitarist/singer/songwriter Jamey Arent's debut EP may be inspired by his years a sideman supporting the likes of Frankie Valli and Matthew Morrison and contributing to network television and Netflix soundtracks -or maybe it's in reference to burning playing atop laid back grooves. In any case, don't put The Back Burner ...
Nick Fraser - Kris Davis - Tony Malaby (with Ingrid Laubrock & Lina Allemano): Zoning
by Troy Dostert
Nate Cross' Astral Spirits imprint has steadily become one of the go-to options for fans of adventurous music. With over a hundred releases in its five-year existence, including well over thirty in 2019 alone, the label has maintained an impressive commitment to both quality and quantity. However, an output this extensive can result in a few ...
Ezra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God
by Jerome Wilson
In 2015 Ezra Weiss began to compose a suite that he intended would be a cautiously optimistic message to his young children about the world they were living in and the challenges and promise they would face as they grew up. By the time this music was completed and recorded in December 2018, its mood and ...
