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Ralph Bowen: Power Play
by Bruce Lindsay
With over 20 years experience as a recording artist and composer, saxophonist Ralph Bowen has a mastery of straight-ahead jazz that is immediately apparent on Power Play, his third album for the Posi-Tone label. Bowen's first two Posi-Tone releases, 2009's Dedicated and 2010's Due Reverence were quintet recordings. For Power Play, he trims down to an ...
Cuong Vu 4-Tet: Leaps of Faith
by C. Michael Bailey
The order and presentation of music on a recording or in a recital are every bit as important in the music producer's skill set as is choosing what music to include. Had trumpeter Cuong Vu introduced his Vu-Tet's Leaps of Faith with the title piece, or “Child-Like (for Vina)," it would have been easy to dismiss ...
Matthew Shipp: The Art Of The Improviser
by Mark Corroto
By now, critical listeners have formed an opinion about the music of pianist Matthew Shipp. Like his musical predecessors Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk, Shipp is an uncompromising voice that tends to force listeners to queue up in line, either for him or against him. With the release of The Art Of The Improviser, he has ...
Peter Sommer: Tremolo Canteen
by Florence Wetzel
Like food, music can be hastily prepared and obvious, or it can be thoughtfully concocted, with delicious subtleties of flavor and seasoning. Saxophonist Peter Sommer's standout Tremolo Canteen is happily the latter, full of intricate layers and quiet surprises, performed by four excellent musicians who came of age in the Denver jazz scene. ...
Peter Beets: Chopin Meets the Blues
by Greg Simmons
While a knowledge of romantic pianist Frederic Chopin (1810--1849) can add to the experience of listening to pianist Peter Beets' Chopin Meets the Blues , it is by no means essential to enjoying it. This is a jazz album first and foremost, and a very good one at that. Beets uses Chopin's charts as ...
Assaf Kehati: Flowers And Other Stories
by Dan Bilawsky
Dynamic tension and release is an under-explored avenue in jazz. While composers and performers of this music seem to come out of institutes of higher learning with advanced harmonic knowledge, allowing them to create stunningly complex chords that resolve in an amiable fashion, these very musicians are often incapable of using the same techniques when dealing ...
Eclectica!: Flight Of Fancy
by Bruce Lindsay
Eclectica! is a European string quartet that brings together four exceptional musicians from the realms of jazz and classical music. Flight Of Fancy, the band's second album, continues with its fusion of musical genres, mixing classical, pop and original tunes in a beautifully performed collection. String quartet is an accurate description of Eclectica!, ...
The New World Jazz Composers Octet: Transitions
by Greg Simmons
The best of jazz generally ensures that there is a leader, a composition, or at least an agreed upon theme that holds the work together, and herein lies the conundrum of The New World Jazz Composers Octet's Transitions.Musical egalitarianism is one of the hallmarks of jazz--the notion that everyone has an opportunity to make ...
David Lopato: Many Moons
by Dan Bilawsky
Pianist David Lopato's Many Moons could just as easily have been called Many Moods, with the variety of approaches he takes on these twelve original piano pieces. Jazz is only one area of expertise on Lopato's large resume, which also includes extensive studies on African drumming and Javanese gamelan, scoring work for theater and dance, and ...
Shawn Costantino: Waltz for Anne
by Edward Blanco
Director of Jazz Studies at the prestigious Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, Shawn Costantino features a blend of contemporary and modern jazz in a nicely packaged collection of originals and covers on Waltz for Anne, the saxophonist/educator's first recoding as leader. Armed with a graduate degree from DePaul University, where he honed his skills ...
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