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Article: Album Review

Ambrose Akinmusire: On The Tender Spot Of Every Calloused Moment

Read "On The Tender Spot Of Every Calloused Moment" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 15, 2020

Trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire rings the changes admirably from album to album. On The Tender Spot Of Every Calloused Moment is the most stripped down of his Blue Note outings (it is his fifth album for the label). It is made with a quartet. There is no second horn. The sound is ECM-like in its ...

Article: Reassessing

Back At The Chicken Shack

by Thomas Fletcher
June 20, 2020

Back At The Chicken Shack celebrates 60 years since its recording date at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs. The same session produced Midnight Special (Blue Note, 1961), though Back At The Chicken Shack would have to wait three years for its release. The label's co-founder, Alfred Lion, later revealed that the healthy sales of ...

Article: Reassessing

Sonny's Crib

by C. Michael Bailey
June 7, 2020

From the outset, pianist Sonny Clark's sophomore effort as a leader is crisp, white-hot hard bop. Leading a standard bop trumpet-tenor saxophone quintet (Donald Byrd, John Coltrane), supplemented with trombone (Curtis Fuller), Clark and his most reliable rhythm section of bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Art Taylor carve five dictionary examples (with alternate takes on the ...

Article: Album Review

GoGo Penguin: GoGo Penguin

Read "GoGo Penguin" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
May 29, 2020

Calling GoGo Penguin a jazz group is sort of like calling Canada a big snowy place. Nobody would consider such a simple term adequate to describe the trio today, least of all the members themselves--bassist Nick Blacka explains that with album number five, GGP has “finally come to accept that we really just aren't a jazz ...

Article: Reassessing

New Faces - New Sounds

by C. Michael Bailey
May 21, 2020

Jazz is littered with musicians like Elmo Hope: young, talented and, ultimately, doomed because of racism, poverty, and chemical dependency. Born in New York City, the son of immigrants from the Caribbean, Hope managed to release more than a baker's dozen of studio recordings in as many years, before dying of drug addiction-related health problems in ...

Article: Reassessing

Dial "S" for Sonny

by C. Michael Bailey
May 20, 2020

Pianist Sonny Clark was culturally marginalized in much the same way as his contemporary Elmo Hope—both heroin-addicted jazz musicians in the 1950s: at the time, and romantically, a cliche. Both pianists have been sorely lumped into the “Bud Powell school of bop piano" which superficially may seem accurate until one considers the evolutionary continuum of jazz ...

Article: Reassessing

New Faces - New Sounds

by C. Michael Bailey
May 12, 2020

In the early 1950s, Blue Note Records introduced new artists in the label's series New Faces -New Sounds. It highlighted such young artists as Horace Silver (1952); Lou Donaldson (1952); Elmo Hope (1953); and Frank Foster (1954). All of these recordings were released as part of Blue Note Record's 5000 Modern Jazz Series, all on 10-inch ...

Article: Reassessing

New Faces - New Sounds

by C. Michael Bailey
May 8, 2020

The jazz name Wynton Kelly is typically associated with other artists' endeavors, such as John Coltrane's Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1959), Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959) or Wes Montgomery's Smokin' at the Half Note (Verve, 1965), just to mention three landmark recordings. While he always seemed best cast in supporting roles, Kelly did have a ...

News: Event

Grammy Winning Trumpeter, Composer, Producer, Arranger, Multi-Instrumentalist, Songwriter Michael Leonhart Spins Classic & Rare Blue Note Albums On April 21st At 7:30pm ET

April 19, 2020

Live from Leonhart's Lounge! Grab your favorite beverage, sit back and tune in as Michael Leonhart (of Michael Leonhart Orchestra and Steely Dan) “drops the needle" on some classic and rare Blue Note albums on April 21, 2020 at 7:30m ET. A virtual listening party As part of their ongoing monthly residency at Jazz Standard, the ...

Article: Album Review

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Just Coolin'

Read "Just Coolin'" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
April 14, 2020

Great moments play all over Just Coolin', the new archival Blue Note Art Blakey release from 1959, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio with Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons and Jymie Merritt. For a bit of history, let's just point out that Hank Mobley was returning to the tenor chair he held from 1951-56, but which had ...