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Dan Bilawsky's Best Releases Of 2015
by Dan Bilawsky
A theme for this year's list? How about Jazz Unbound?" I initially planned on placing my picks into different categories, as I've often done in the past. But I thought better of it. The releases that caught my ear in 2015 cover the entire spectrum of possibility--winning straight-ahead outings, audacious affairs, dynamic debuts, intimate encounters, stellar ...
Ariel Pocock: Touchstone
by Dan Bilawsky
What are the touchstones of jazz? Harmonic acuity? Internalization of swing aesthetics and advanced rhythmic language(s)? The ability to quickly parse a composition in real time? An understanding of the historical framework of the music? The ability to create and speak one's own mind using any number of vocabulary sets? Yes. Each of those elements are ...
Scott Jeppesen: Wonders
by Dan Bilawsky
Ancient history and current times collide on the sophomore release from California-based tenor saxophonist Scott Jeppesen: with Wonders, he offers up an intelligent, semi-programmatic look at the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as seen through a modern jazz lens. Jeppesen, a once-upon-a-time protégé of saxophonist Joe Henderson and a jazz studies doctoral ...
Mundell Lowe / Lloyd Wells / Jim Ferguson: Poor Butterfly
by Dan Bilawsky
Few people could ever claim to have played and/or recorded with such a storied list of performers as Sarah Vaughan, Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald, Blossom Dearie, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, and Lester Young. But Mundell Lowe can. In fact, that list barely scratches the surface when it comes to the ...
Samuel Torres Group: Forced Displacement
by Dan Bilawsky
When Chamber Music America awarded Colombian-born, New York-based percussionist Samuel Torres a New Jazz Works grant in 2012, the wheels started spinning in his mind. Ultimately, it would be his native land that would help determine the directional vision for the grant-funded work: Torres, inspired by a visit to San Juan de Urabá and an encounter ...
Dan Wilensky: Made In Portland
by Dan Bilawsky
Relocating is never easy, but it would seem that multi-reedist Dan Wilensky has acclimated quite well to the musical climate of Portland, Oregon since arriving there in 2012. The latest release from this man-of-many-talents puts him in close quarters with a collection of that city's finest musicians, a crew that's ready and eager to tackle Wilensky's ...
Larry Fuller Trio at Jazz at Kitano
by Dan Bilawsky
Larry Fuller Trio Jazz at Kitano New York, NY November 22, 2015 While jazz is a music founded and fed on innovation, it's also an art form steeped in tradition, forwarded through the passing of the torch to the next generation(s) in order to keep the life force of the ...
Jessica Jones Quartet: Moxie
by Dan Bilawsky
Moxie is both an extension of tenor saxophonist Jessica Jones' previous work and a glimpse back to an earlier point in her career: she continues to explore the possibilities inherent in a piano-less quartet with a two-tenor front line while reuniting with a rhythm duo that she worked with in the '80s--bassist Stomu Takeishi and drummer ...
Elif Çağlar: Misfit
by Dan Bilawsky
Elif Çağlar sure knows how to put together a band. For her sophomore release, this Istanbul-based vocalist--a former pupil of Sheila Jordan--enlisted three modernist luminaries to help light the way: drummer Eric Harland brings his usual rhythmic ingenuity, energy, and play-for-the-song perspective to the production; bassist Harish Raghavan--Harland's bassist of choice for his own Voyager project--is ...
Luis Munoz: Voz
by Dan Bilawsky
There's selfless, and then there's really selfless. This vocal-centric album of original compositions written and arranged by drummer Luis Muñoz falls into the latter category. Instead of using this as a platform to promote his own playing, which wouldn't necessarily be frowned upon considering the fact that it's his album, Muñoz's contributions on the performance end--drums, ...


