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Cameron Mizell: Negative Spaces
by Dave Wayne
A whole bunch of very accomplished guitarists out there have styles can be described cursorily as lying within a triangle that has John Scofield, Pat Metheny, and Bill Frisell at its vertices. There's nothing wrong with this. Scofield, Metheny, and Frisell are amazing, prolific, and highly influential. And even within these confines, there's a lot of ...
BassDrumBone: The Long Road
by Troy Collins
Trombonist Ray Anderson, bassist Mark Helias, and drummer Gerry Hemingway have been performing together as BassDrumBone for almost four decades. The Long Road, the trio's tenth release, was recorded in celebration of the ensemble's forty-year anniversary, and is the group's most wide-ranging and definitive effort to date. In honor of this auspicious occasion, they invited esteemed ...
Jose Mauro: Obnoxius
by Chris M. Slawecki
The oddly-titled Obnoxius bears precious little, and yet quite curious, baggage. Little is known about its original 1971 release other than it came out on a label founded by Brazilian producer Roberto Quartin, who also worked with Eumir Deodato. We seem to know even less about songwriter, guitarist, vocalist and arranger Jose Mauro. We ...
Stu Harrison: Volume 1
by Dan McClenaghan
Toronto-based pianist Stu Harrison doesn't boast much of an internet presence, so we'll go with the music: Stu Harrison: Volume I is a celebration of the standard piano trio format, a joyful immersion into ten familiar tunes, beginning with Lerner & Lowe's The Street where You Live," from My Fair Lady soundtrack. The lively take on ...
Mount Meander: Mount Meander
by John Sharpe
While it might seem that there is a production line for outfits hailing from Scandinavia, Mount Meander demonstrates that the output is far from standardised. Comprising two Germans in pianist Lucas Leidinger and drummer Thomas Sauerborn, along with the Copenhagen-based pair of Latvian saxophonist Karlis Auzins and Polish bassist Tomo Jacobson, the collective quartet shares a ...
Jacam Manricks: Chamber Jazz
by Dave Wayne
Now based in California, composer and multi-reed whiz Jacam Manricks describes himself as Sri Lankan- Portuguese Australian-born." In other words he's the virtual embodiment of a world citizen. When it comes to his music, Manricks is unafraid to draw from pretty much any source for inspiration. The wryly-titled Chamber Jazz comprises eight Manricks originals plus a ...
LUME: Xabregas 10
by Glenn Astarita
LUME is the acronym for the Lisbon Underground Music Ensemble, which is a large mini-big band type unit, captured live and arranged by pianist Marco Barroso who also penned the compositions. With prog rock nuances and some Frank Zappa style horn charts, the ensemble pushes the envelope from start to finish. It's a stinging presentation that ...
Sonny Rollins: Holding the Stage: Road Shows Vol. 4
by Chris M. Slawecki
At this point in his long and storied career, tenor saxman Sonny Rollins is probably incapable of releasing genuinely bad music (which isn't as obvious a statement as it may seem if, for example, you've tried to listen to Bob Dylan's Shadows in the Night Sinatra homage). Still, some sets are better than others, and Sonny ...
Scott Amendola vs. Wil Blades: Greatest Hits
by Doug Collette
Hardly the adversarial enterprise its billing implies, Greatest Hits is not keyboardist Wil Blades' first duo with a master percussionist: he recorded Shimmy (Amulet, 2012) with Billy Martin (of Medeski, Martin & Wood fame) in 2012. And any music lover who relished Martin's somewhat more abstract collaboration with keyboardist Medeski, Mago (Amulet, 2007) will be nevertheless ...
Sao Paulo Underground: Cantos Invisíveis
by Troy Collins
Democratically led by Chicago-based sound explorer Rob Mazurek, São Paulo Underground has been defying genre conventions and musical boundaries for almost a decade. Originally formed with percussionist Mauricio Takara and keyboardist Guilherme Granado during Mazurek's sojourn in Brazil (2000-2005), the ensemble's membership has undergone a subtle change on its fifth album with the addition of Swiss-born ...

