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Postcards from Christmas 2001
by Chris M. Slawecki
In a way, the path of holiday music that annually ends each year sort of parallels the trajectory of Jazz released throughout the rest of the year: The releases come in many forms and styles. Though someone will occasionally pen a contemporary classic, the general repertoire is commonly agreed-upon and standard. With a repertoire so traditional ...
The Conga Kings: Jazz Descargas
by Chris M. Slawecki
On many levels, The Conga Kings’ Jazz Descargas is authentic Afro-Cuban jazz. For starters, Carlos “Patato” Valdes and Candido Camero have been Afro-Cuban music pioneers for decades. Patato is recognized as one of the first to tune his congas to a song’s dominant chord, which contributes harmony to the song’s melody as well as to the ...
Nils Petter Molvaer: Solid Ether
by Chris M. Slawecki
Norwegian trumpet player Nils Petter Molvær captures himself in a swirling electronic nightmare of his own creation on Solid Ether (ECM). A stunning meltdown of classic jazz trumpet styles with modern techno, drum-and-bass and electronic music, Solid Ether continues and expands the stylish deviltry of Khamer, Molvær’s debut as a leader for ECM in 1998. Khamer ...
Ubiquity Records: Keepin' It Real After Ten Years
by Chris M. Slawecki
The Ubiquity Records family celebrates their tenth anniversary this year. In those ten years, Ubiquity has established a unique reputation as an underground label" that is enormously popular, too. Even cooler, the Ubiquity label (an umbrella that also encompasses the Luv N' Haight and CuBop imprints) seems equally beloved by both dance-club revelers and buttoned-down critics.
Tommy Flanagan Trio: Sea Changes
by Chris M. Slawecki
Sea Changes is an honest-to-god jazzconcept albumfrom composer / pianist Tommy Flanagan. Born in 1930 Detroit, but known more resonantly as a ‘Big Apple’ jazzman, where by the mid-1950s he had moved to groove alongside the likes of Coleman Hawkins, Miles Davis and Oscar Pettiford. Flanagan was frequently Bud Powell’s replacement at Birdland, and has also ...
Various Artists: Monterey Jazz Festival: Forty Legendary Years
by Chris M. Slawecki
In my wilder, more unforgiving days, I might have merely typed up the personnel and set list and submitted only that in review of Monterey Jazz Festival: Forty Legendary Years, and argued to the powers-that-be that if the reader couldn’t comprehend its abundant magnificence of music from the unadorned facts, my descriptive and persuasive prowess would ...
Greyboy: Freestylin
by Chris M. Slawecki
As far as I can tell, not many people have heard Freestylin’, released in 1993 on Ubiquity Records by Harold Todd (on tenor sax and flute) with guitarist Marc Antoine and a host of hip-hop rhythms, loops, techniques and musicians. But just about every person thathasheard it – at least at MY house – has seemed ...
Various Artists: Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool
by Chris M. Slawecki
People continue to argue about what is and is not jazz." One of the more consistent topics in the contemporary extension of this age-old argument is acid-jazz" – is acid jazz" jazz, or not? This gets even more frustrating when it seems that there’s no consensus as to what acid jazz" means, either.
Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie: Diz'N'Bird at Carnegie Hall
by Chris M. Slawecki
For those of us born too late to have experienced it ourselves, and for everybody else who missed it as it actually happened, Diz’N’Bird At Carnegie Hall documents an awesome concert performance by a partnership whose influence on the history of jazz is inescapable and profound, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. ...
Us3: Broadway & 52nd
by Chris M. Slawecki
It's hard to imagine a more hallowed jazz address than broadway & 52nd , the site of the original Birdland. In 1993, British underground DJ turned hip-hop producer Geoff Wilkinson shook up the jazz world with Hand On The Torch, a collection of hip-hop and rap tunes based on samples from classic Blue Note ...


