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Emilio Solla: Tributango
by Dan McClenaghan
There's nothing quite so romantic and life-affirming, in its exuberantly dance-able way, than the tango. It's a sensuous, sinuous sound that bubbled up from the streets of Argentina where bandoneonist/composer Astor Piazzolla found it, and refined it and took it to the concert halls. And in the tradition of all great music, assimilations occur, hand-offs to ...
Modus Factor: The Picasso Zone
by Dan McClenaghan
Modus Factor, a trio based in Toronto, says it creates “Electro ambient improvisational bedlam." An accurate description of their sound except, perhaps, for the bedlam part (for the most part). Featuring a drums/bass/electric trumpet line-up, with effects, the comparisons that come to mind are Nils Petter Molvaer's spacey approach on sets like Switch (OKeh Record, 2014) ...
Dan McClenaghan's Best Releases Of 2016
by Dan McClenaghan
The music keeps moving forward, evolving to higher levels. My search for the best jazz recordings of 2016 led me to these marvelous CDs. Wadada Leo SmithAmerica's National Parks Cuneiform Records Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has attempted in, the new millennium, to create his magnum opus. He may have succeeded ...
Ed Neumeister: Suite Ellington
by Dan McClenaghan
Trombonist Ed Neumeister opened his excellent quartet outing, New Standards (Meistero Music, 2005) with an energized take Duke Ellington's signature tune, “Take The 'A' Train." It was apparent that he had a way with Duke's music. A quick dip into Neumeister's resume finds that he played in Duke Ellington's Orchestra for sixteen years, post-Duke, when the ...
Frank Kimbrough: Solstice
by Dan McClenaghan
A stellar interlude of three-way instrumental interplay can be found on composer/conductor Maria Schneider's first masterpiece, Concert In The Garden (ArtistShare, 2004), on the set's title tune, beginning about five and a half minutes in. Ben Monder lays down a ghostly guitar solo that climbs to an eerie climax, as a handoff to pianist Frank Kimbrough, ...
Lauren Bush: All My Treasures
by Dan McClenaghan
Toronto-bred and now London-based Lauren Bush introduces herself --on her debut, All My Treasures--as a traditional, vivacious, and supremely confident vocalist, in the mode of Ella Fitzgerald or Anita O'Day. And the tunes she calls her treasures are mostly from the familiar end of the Great American Songbook spectrum. The voice is sassy/brassy, horn ...
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 ...
The Common Quartet: The Hive
by Dan McClenaghan
The first spin of any particular recording is more often than not a cursory affair, a listening experience done without undivided attention; and The Hive, by the Brooklyn-based Common Quartet, under these conditions, seemed to have a West Coast cool jazz vibe. And saxophonist Seth Trachy brought Paul Desmond, of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, to mind, ...
Steve Heckman: Legacy: A Coltrane Tribute
by Dan McClenaghan
Saxophonist Steve Heckman has spent a good deal of his career walking in the footsteps of saxophone giant John Coltrane, on CD offerings such as Search For Peace (Jazzed Media, 2014) and With John In Mind (World City Music, 2003). With that in mind, nobody has ever--and almost certainly never will--match 'Trane in his ability to ...
Adam Pieronczyk:
by Dan McClenaghan
Most CD reviews don't start like this, but here it is: author Erik Von Daniken came up with the “ancient astronauts thesis," laid out in his popular book, Chariots Of the Gods? (1968), speculating on the extraterrestrial meddling in early human cultures, claiming that those Earth people at those particular times lacked the requisite know how ...
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