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Michael Dease: Coming Home
by C. Michael Bailey
Trombonist Michael Dease's Coming Home is the evolutionary culmination of all of the small group work of which he has been a part. Dease's musical personality reveals itself fully on the disc, one he has populated with a very fine band and thoughtfully composed and selected pieces for that band. Dease's previous work as a leader ...
Kristian Terzic: Kristian Terzic
by Glenn Astarita
In case the good word hasn't gotten out, Croatia boasts a nascent jazz scene. Keyboardist Kristian Terzic dispatches a prime example of that notion, performing with fellow countrymen on this sparkling rendezvous that skirts jazz-fusion and the Latin element. Other than his impressive technical faculties, Terzic shines as an impressive composer. Regardless of tempo or when ...
Willie Nelson and Family: Let’s Face the Music and Dance
by C. Michael Bailey
While it is an apologia for Willie Nelson, at 80, he has more than earned the right to do as he damn well pleases when he records. When Ray Charles passed away in 2004, Nelson was the only American musician to possibly accept the Charles mantle of musician with the greatest depth and breadth, having had ...
Charles Flores: Impressions Of Graffiti
by Glenn Astarita
Reared and educated in Cuba, bassist Charles Flores migrated to the US and evolved into a first-call session artist for saxophonist David Sanchez and flautist Dave Valentine among many others. Sadly, Flores' debut solo endeavor is a posthumous release as he succumbed to cancer on August 22, 2012. Yet it's a luminous testament to his holistic ...
Rodrigo Amado's Motion Trio + Jeb Bishop: The Flame Alphabet
by John Sharpe
Remember free-bop? While there's no hard and fast definition, the term was used to encompass jazz boasting a written head, often at rapid bebop tempo, which subsequently opened up harmonically and rhythmically, but without straying completely off the map. Think some of the freewheeling Blue Note discs of Sam Rivers and Andrew Hill or some of ...
Uri Gurvich: BabEl
by Mark Corroto
Toss a dart at the world map and you are likely to hit a country of origin for a band member in saxophonist Uri Gurvich's ensemble. The Israeli-born son of Argentinian parents assembled an international cast for his first release The Storyteller (Tzadik, 2009). The same band of Bulgarian bassist Peter Slavov, Cuban drummer Francisco Mela, ...
Michelle Pollace: New Beginning
by Edward Blanco
Pianist and composer Michelle Pollace from the San Francisco Bay Area has been a long-time exponent of the Latin jazz genre going back to her days as co-leader of the Zarate Pollace Project where, along with Bay Area songwriter and guitarist Abel Zarate, the group performed a blend of fusion, jazz, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban styles of ...
Jacob Varmus: Terminal Stillness
by Dan Bilawsky
Jazz is always caught up in the idea of looking forward or backwards, but whatever happened to the idea of looking around? Much ado about movement--toward the future, the past, the next chord in the progression or the next stage of a career--often gets in the way of the simple act of creation. The jazz community, ...
Steve Heckman: Born to be Blue
by C. Michael Bailey
Much is made of the influence of John Coltrane on multi-reedist Steve Heckman. His third recording, Born to be Blue finds Heckman delving deeper into the standards territory, Coltrane's residual influence showing up in Heckman's slightly raspy, dry tone, but not anything as caustic as Coltrane's take-no-prisoner timbre. This is not Heckman's pass at Ballads (Impulse!, ...
Vole: The Hillside Mechanisms
by Glenn Astarita
Youthful dynamism and a conglomerate of influences signify a few conspicuous attributes of this European trio's debut album. It's a semi-structured and highly improvised outing. And the musicians pool their resources to indulge in free-form slugfests amid transitory punk-rock grooves, bizarre progressive-rock stylizations and numerous flights into the avant-garde jazz strata. Nonetheless, the band is a ...
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