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5

Article: Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: Fire Illuminations

Read "Fire Illuminations" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith fronts lots of different bands and puts out lots of albums. After a busy period when he released five boxed sets, totaling 27 CDs, here he debuts his new all-star ensemble Orange Wave Electric, with the download-only offering, Fire Illuminations. As the band name implies, the sound is electric, featuring three electric ...

9

Article: Album Review

David Ecker: Respite (Despite)

Read "Respite (Despite)" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

The Covid pandemic has been educational. One of its lessons is (to paraphrase a famous movie): music finds a way. If getting together in the studio is a problem, then grab the technology and go the remote recording route. It worked for guitarist Justin Morell and drummer Mark Ferber on 2022's Exit Music For Intelligent Life ...

7

Article: Album Review

Tim Bruer: Love Letters: Compositions For Solo Piano

Read "Love Letters: Compositions For Solo Piano" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

The music on Australian pianist Tim Bruer's Love Letters: Compositions For Solo Piano have simple beginnings. For example, a chord that Bruer loved--one which came about via his “messing around" with a keyboard sound that caught his ear--then developed quickly, with little tweaking, into its completed form; a composition was born Bruer loves sounds ...

4

Article: Album Review

Avi Granite 6: Operator

Read "Operator" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

Guitarist Avi Granite--in the company of his brash band Avi Granite 6--opens his Operator with “Crushing Beans," displaying a big bad attitude. The drums are explosive, the horns belt it out, the bass shakes the walls and Granite slashes and burns. The first impression is: “This must be a great live band." And indeed, the studio ...

4

Article: Album Review

Alister Spence / Tony Buck: Mythographer

Read "Mythographer" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

Duo recordings, no matter what the particular instrumentation, are able to showcase musical mind-melds. Two artists conversing, trading and extrapolating on each other's ideas. Pianist Alister Spence and drummer Tony Buck try the format on for size with Mythographer. This spontaneous, one-day-session recording opens with “Dry Wood Talking." It sounds as if the talking ...

12

Article: Album Review

Brad Goode: The Unknown

Read "The Unknown" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

One of the joys attached to reviewing music is the exposure to artists who otherwise might not show up on the radar. For every Pat Metheny there are a hundred highly-creative, lower-profile, hugely-talented guitarists plucking the strings; for every Brad Mehldau plying the trade ten dozen marvelous, relatively unknown pianists show up in the mailbox or ...

7

Article: Album Review

Manzanita Quintet: Osmosis

Read "Osmosis" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

The tried and true quintet formation, set in stone by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in the late 1940s, is back in 2022 with the Reno, Nevada-based Manzanita Quintet. So how do they give a fresh shine to a sound that could be considered “done to death?" On Osmosis the ...

21

Article: Building a Jazz Library

ECM Records Touchstones: Part 3

Read "ECM Records Touchstones: Part 3" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This third edition of “ECM Touchstones" explores more of the label's early recordings, repackaged and offered up as a way to present music that had perhaps slipped through time's cracks, into the hard-to-find category. Of these, four were re-released in 2019, one in 2008--24 to 47 ...

30

Article: Building a Jazz Library

ECM Records Touchstones: Part 2

Read "ECM Records Touchstones: Part 2" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This second edition of “ECM Touchstones" explores more of the label's early recordings, repackaged and offered up as a way to present music that had perhaps slipped through time's cracks, into the hard-to-find category. Of these, four were re-released in 2019, one in 2008--32 to 43 ...

12

Article: Album Review

Simona Premazzi: Wave In Gravity

Read "Wave In Gravity" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan

What do we listen for in a solo piano project? Technical proficiency. Heart. Body. Soul. A vulnerability versus strength dynamic. The ability to surrender to the sounds, to take them where they want to go. In other words, we look for how well the artist articulates their humanity. Simona Premazzi displays all these attributes ...


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