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Nick Hempton: The Business
by Bruce Lindsay
Saxophonist Nick Hempton's decision to call his second album The Business might be a comment on the commercial nature of jazz, or it might be a rather hubristic statement about the nature of his own music. Big, fat grooves, a real sense of swing, strong melodies and even stronger rhythms suggest that Hempton is right to ...
Rich Pellegrin Quintet: Three-Part Odyssey
by Dan McClenaghan
What a strange, compelling, often circuitous trip Three-Part Odyssey is. Pianist/composer/bandleader Rich Pellegrin has collected a youthful quintet of Seattle's boldest and most energetic musicians for his debut CD--73 minutes of audacious grooves inside a set of freewheeling compositions that showcase each band member's individual virtuosic prowess without abandoning the collective mood.Along with the ...
Wadada Leo Smith's Organic: Heart's Reflections
by Jerry D'Souza
The creative arc of Wadada Leo Smith describes a man of many talents. He was a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) before forming the Creative Construction Company with Anthony Braxton and Leroy Jenkins. He has organized music into rhythm units and added a form of notation he called Akhreanvention. He ...
Mik Keusen's Blau: Nalu
by Greg Simmons
Mik Keusen's Blau clearly articulates a musical vision. A typical jazz lineup--piano, bass, drums, and reeds--Nalu spawns music that is anything but typical. Instead, it is post-modern and ambient, with almost industrial rhythmic drive. Nalu is as far from the core of blues and standard-based jazz as Pluto is from the sun. Tightly composed ...
Sean Nowell: Stockholm Swingin'
by Dan Bilawsky
Tenor saxophonist Sean Nowell's third CD is an engaging set of music that was recorded live at the Glen Miller Café in Stockholm at the end of a fourteen-day tour through Sweden. Nowell's band mate in Travis Sullivan's Björkestra, drummer Joe Abba, and a solid crew of Swedish musicians help to flesh out this riveting set ...
Mik Keusen's Blau: Nalu
by John Kelman
With the sudden appearance of pianist Nik Bärtsch and Stoa (ECM, 2006), a new musical paradigm emerged from Switzerland: a rigorous musical aesthetic combining post-Steve Reichian minimalism with funk and cross-cultural tinges of Japan and Indonesia. Bärtsch's music actually dates back to the early part of the millennium, but it was ECM's attention that gave the ...
Satoko Fujii: Rafale
by Dan McClenaghan
It's no easy task keeping track of the bands under the baton of pianist Satoko Fujii. The prolific avant-garde artist from Japan leads numerous ensembles, including four distinct big bands and multiple quartets and trios, in addition to co-leading duo outings with her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, very notably on the marvelous Chun (Libra, 2008). She ...
POING / Maja S.K. Ratkje: Wach auf!
by Eyal Hareuveni
Wach auf! (Wake up! in German) is only the third release by POING in its 12 years of activity, but what a remarkable achievement from a Norwegian trio whose repertoire encompasses compositions by pioneer minimalist composer Terry Riley, nuevo-tango composer Astor Piazzolla , political alt-rock band Rage Against The Machine, Russian songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky, Prince, Charles ...
Adam Linson: Figures and Grounds
by John Eyles
The personnel of double-bassist Adam Linson's System Quartet is so good that it sets the juices flowing even before a note of music has been heard. Figures and Grounds was recorded in January 2008, when Linson still lived in Berlin, and he took full advantage of his adopted city's resources, recruiting trumpeter Axel Dörner, bass clarinetist ...
The Young Lizards: Our Modern Lifestyle
by Jack Bowers
The organ trio, once a focal point of soul-drenched jazz in the heyday of such elder statesmen as Jimmy Smith, Richard “Groove" Holmes, Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Charles Earland, Don Patterson and others, hasn't been nearly as prominent in recent years as the ranks of virtuosic organists (Joey DeFrancesco notwithstanding) have thinned. Nevertheless, the organ ...
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