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Sir Roland Hanna: Colors from a Giant's Kit
by Raul d'Gama Rose
This 1990s recording, produced by William Sorin, a loving fan of pianist Sir Roland Hanna is a riveting one. Featuring the maestro alone, playing what must have been some of his favorite charts, was carefully thought out. And though it does not come with too many of Hanna's own compositions it does--like Jaki Byard's fable recordings, ...
Jim Tomlinson: The Lyric
by Bruce Lindsay
Saxophonist Jim Tomlinson originally released The Lyric in 2005 on his own Token Records label, winning the 2006 BBC Jazz Award for Best Album. It's a skillfully crafted collection of standards, given graceful and stylish life by the husband and wife partnership of Tomlinson and singer Stacey Kent. The recording gets a 2011 mid-price rerelease on ...
Pitom: Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes
by Glenn Astarita
Recorded for John Zorn's Tzadik Records, and sustaining the spirit of radical Jewish music, Pitom's second album is a psychodramatic crash-and-burn event. Spanning Sonic Youth-like reckless abandon, hardcore grunge, jazz improvisation and the blasphemous morphing of traditional Jewish music stylizations with jazz-rock, the unit abides by a take-no-prisoners approach. Offering an antithesis to the norm, with ...
Dominick Farinacci: Dawn of Goodbye
by Lewis J Whittington
No lyrics necessary. The black and white cover photos of Dominick Farinacci's Dawn of Goodbye evokes the early 1960s, but the trumpeter is not just striking a pose. He may only be 28, but the tone of his trumpet is that of a multi-era jazz soul. Farinacci's concept for this collection, sans lyrics, ...
Linley Hamilton: Taylor Made
by Dan Bilawsky
It's rare that an artist names an album after one of his sidemen, but Belfast-based trumpeter Linley Hamilton clearly values the contributions that pianist Johnny Taylor made to this recording. Both men share a vision, regarding the manner in which they should address traditions while also putting their own stamp on these well-known numbers, and their ...
Terell Stafford: This Side of Strayhorn
by Kevin Davis
The preservation of traditional values in jazz has long been at the core of the art form's most bittersweet dichotomy, which is essentially a spin on the age-old idea that even moderate-level progressions in any given field require ideological breakdowns that generally make everyone mad. Miles Davis, for example, decried this preservation outright, and the jazz ...
Deep Blue Organ Trio: Wonderful!
by Dan McClenaghan
Chicago's Deep Blue Organ Trio mines one of popular soul artist Stevie Wonder's most fertile creative periods--the late sixties through the early seventies--on Wonderful!. The organ trio format is known for its unvarnished soulfulness, and the group's reverent treatment of these familiar hits gives a breezy lift to Wonder's always engaging and ebullient melodies.
John Daversa: Junk Wagon:The Big Band Album
by Dan Bilawsky
Constant stimulation is the name of the game on Junk Wagon. Trumpeter/composer John Daversa delivers nine pieces that reflect the hustle and bustle of today's world, without resorting to any big band clichés of yore. Each composition, with the exception of the balladic Most Of All," is a stylistic hybrid, where scattershot elements ...
Trio 3 + Geri Allen: Celebrating Mary Lou Williams (Live at Birdland New York)
by Glenn Astarita
These modern jazz VIPs render a synchronized attack that incites a harmonious mélange of mainstream, progressive, and free-jazz during this homage to legendary pianist, composer and arranger Mary Lou Williams. One of the mainstays and redeeming traits of this live program relates to the musicians' inimitable styles amid their technical faculties and keen interpretative powers. With ...
Alex Garnett: Serpent
by Bruce Lindsay
The Alex Garnett who peers out of the cover of Serpent looks a little aggressive and wil0- eyed, with odd vertical slits where his pupils should be--a serpent indeed. The Garnett on the inside is more benign, but with a contemporary hipness. In the excellent black and white back cover photo, the besuited saxophonist is cool ...

