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Article: Album Review

Naftule's Dream: Blood

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by Dan McClenaghan
June 14, 2016

Emerging from the ranks of the Boston area's Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, Naftule's Dream began with John Zorn's Tzadik Records when the label was young, offering up on the imprint Search for the Golden Dreydl (1997), Smash, Clap! (1998) and Job (2001). One thing about a large scale klezemer band--it offers up plenty of opportunity for madcap ...

Article: Album Review

Cuong Vu Trio With Pat Metheny: Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny

Read "Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 4, 2016

One of the most distinctive jazz sounds to have appeared this millennium has been shaped by Cuong Vu. Beginning with his It's Mostly Residual (ArtistShare, 2005) through Vu-Tet (ArtistShare, 2007) and into Leaps of Faith, (Origin Records 2011), the modernistic and often plugged-in trumpeter has crafted an assault of sound: a thick, sludgy, glow-in-the-dark, pugnaciously percussive ...

Article: Album Review

Masabumi Kikuchi: Black Orpheus

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 30, 2016

Black Orpheus, the solo piano CD from Japanese-born pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, may be the starkest, loneliest music in the world. Masabumi Kikuchi (1939-2015) was a versatile, if ultimately idiosyncratic artist. Early in his career he worked with a panoply of mainstream music makers, everyone from drummer Elvin Jones, to producer arranger Gil Evans, tenor ...

Article: Album Review

Eduardo Elia: Solo

by Dan McClenaghan
May 27, 2016

Argentinian pianist Eduardo Elia, based now in his homeland, attended Berkelee College of Music in Boston. He has a handful of CD releases as a leader, and beyond that, information on the artist is hard to find. His internet profile is sketchy. So the review is all about the music, and maybe that's how ...

Article: Album Review

Corey Christiansen: Factory Girl

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 22, 2016

Guitarist Corey Christiansen began his stint at Origin Records in 2008 with a top notch organ jazz outing, Roll With It. He followed that with an equally engaging disc featuring the same players, Outlaw Tractor on the label in 2010. On these two dates, Christensen and his superb band worked the soul jazz groove typical of ...

Article: Album Review

Myriad3: Moons

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 16, 2016

Someone's always trying to take a tried and true format out on a new tangent. Consider the piano trio: Bill Evans introduced deep, classically-influenced harmonics and a democracy of instrumental input in the late fifties and early sixties. The Esbjorn Svennson Trio (e.s.t.) brought in classical, rock, pop and techno elements; The Bad Plus plays with ...

Article: Album Review

Naomi Moon Siegel: Shoebox View

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 4, 2016

Trombonist Naomi Moon Siegel represents the new breed of jazz artists, the ones who have to make it all happen themselves. In lieu of an established record label, the words “Self Produced" say it all. And while the ability and relative affordability of putting out a CD that is self funded--or fan direct funded--certainly eliminates a ...

Article: Album Review

Randy Simon Jazz Project: The Linda Sessions

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 30, 2016

The Randy Simon Jazz Project brings to mind, on The Linda Sessions, a high end sports car in top condition zooming down a straight highway, with a rhythm section/drive train boosted by a piano and a guitar. The sound is clean, momentum smooth and straight forward. The tune--the opener of a two CD set--is “Just Deal ...

Article: Album Review

Eugenia Choe: Magic Light

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 25, 2016

It takes nerve to come from (seemingly) out of nowhere to present a piano trio disc. The history runs deep there: Bud Powell, Tommy Flanagan, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett--just a scratching of the surface of the bop and post bebop players in the game. Eugenia Choe, a new-to-the-scene New York-based ...

Article: Album Review

Piero Umiliani: Psichedelica

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 23, 2016

Psichdelica is a fun album. It is music from the pen of Italian movie scorer Piero Umbiliani. The music here composed and recorded for the movie Svenzia Inferno e Paradiso (1968) is in large part a slice of those times. “Trippy, very trippy," might be the colloquial 1968 description for the the disc's first four tunes, ...