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Nik Bärtsch: Awase
by Hrayr Attarian
The exquisite Awase is Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch's eighth release with his band Ronin. Although the ensemble has had a few personnel changes, the album maintains the creative energy and the spirit of its previous work. The title refers to a principle of martial arts that translates to coming together and an appropriately dynamic ...
Matthew Shipp: Invisible Touch At Taktlos Zurich
by John Sharpe
On Invisible Touch At Taktlos Zurich, echoes of the jazz and classical traditions rub shoulders in a bewitching amalgam of insistent phrases, left hand tumult, undulating abstractions and gossamer melody. “No change there then," you might say when considering this installment of Matthew Shipp's solo oeuvre from May 2016. By this stage in his career the ...
Bongwool Lee: My Singing Fingers
by Dan McClenaghan
The music of pianist Bongwool Lee has a hopeful feeling. The Korean-born and now New York-based artist drew her first jazz inspiration--after classical studies in her homeland--from the work of Oscar Peterson, who sent much musical time walking on the sunny side of the street. But where Peterson rolled mostly in the jazz standards/Great American Songbook ...
The Glenn Crytzer Orchestra: Ain't It Grand?
by Jack Bowers
As Karen Carpenter once sang, it's “yesterday once more"--at least it is whenever and wherever the gregarious Glenn Crytzer Orchestra springs into action. Crytzer's ensemble not only revitalizes songs from the long-ago Swing Era of the 1920s, '30s and '40s, its high-stepping two-CD set, Ain't It Grand?, even sounds as though it were recorded in those ...
Andrea Brachfeld: If Not Now, When?
by Dan Bilawsky
Of all of the necessary tools associated with the creative process, the most overlooked may simply be space to think and grow. While the mile-a-minute, multi-tasking mentality that dominates in modern society makes it difficult to find said breathing room, musicians occasionally need to take a step back to fuel their artistic impulses. Flutist Andrea Brachfeld ...
Espen Eriksen Trio With Andy Sheppard: Perfectly Unhappy
by Gareth Thompson
Primo Levi wrote that perfect happiness and perfect unhappiness are both beyond reach. For this he blamed our human condition, which is opposed to everything infinite. Maybe this album's title is also a comment on our hope and despair through life's journey. Not within the realm of Levi's suffering, of course, but in our ...
Edward Simon: Sorrows & Triumphs
by Jerome Wilson
This project by pianist Edward Simon blends together many diverse elements. The music combines classical formalism with jazz energy and is performed by a combination of Simon's jazz quartet, Afinidad, and the woodwind quintet, Imani Winds, with some guest musicians added in. The compositions themselves are movements of two separate suites written by Simon, “Sorrows And ...
Jeremy Rose: Within and Without
by Luca Casarotti
Within and Without è il terzo disco pubblicato a proprio nome dal sassofonista e compositore australiano Jeremy Rose. Per l'occasione il suo quartetto internazionale, composto dal pianista Jackson Harrison (come Rose originario di Sydney), dal bassista Andreas Lang e dal batterista Tobias Backhaus (entrambi berlinesi), ospita Kurt Rosenwinkel: il grande chitarrista è presente in tutte le ...
Andy Zimmerman: Half Light
by Karl Ackermann
Saxophonist Andy Zimmerman is not a household name. The native Chicagoan has been composing, performing, and teaching music for more than two decades. In part, he comes to the subscription-based vinyl label Newvelle by virtue of a long association with the label's co-founder Elan Mehler, himself an accomplished jazz pianist. Mehler and Zimmerman played together at ...
McClenty Hunter Jr.: The Groove Hunter
by Dan Bilawsky
Drummer McClenty Hunter Jr. has left an indelible mark on the scene in the years since his move from the Washington D.C. area to the New York proving grounds. Whether taking to the studio with Jim Snidero, tearing it up on stage with icons like Curtis Fuller and Lou Donaldson, or holding down the fort during ...
