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Article: Album Review

Rayford Griffin: Reflections of Brownie

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by Dan McClenaghan
June 4, 2015

Trumpeter Clifford Brown left a big legacy, in spite of living a lamentably short life--he died in a car accident in 1956, when he was just twenty-five years old. His recordings with drummer Max Roach endure as near-perfect works of art. Sets like Study in Brown (1956), Clifford Brown and Max Roach (1954), Clifford Brown and ...

Article: Album Review

Doug Webb: Triple Play

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 24, 2015

Is there a better way to say “Jazz" than a wailing saxophone? Tenor sax guy Doug Webb has found a one: three wailing saxophones, a killer organ guy and a dynamic, full-of-surprises, rhythmic wizard of a drummer, on Triple Play. His fifth recording on Posi-Tone Records--a label that follows closely in the footsteps of ...

Article: Album Review

Hayden Chisholm: Breve

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 23, 2015

Saxophonist Hayden Chisholm, who hails from New Zealand, has set up shop in in Germany. His debut set as a leader for Germany's Pirouet Records, Breve, features a teaming with fellow Kiwi, bassist Matt Penman, and British piano legend John Taylor, The sound, untethered by the rhythmic anchoring of a drummer, has a smooth, clean, almost ...

Article: Album Review

Ran Blake: Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 20, 2015

At eighty years of age, pianist Ran Blake has shaped an impressive and multifaceted legacy: four decades of mentoring students at the New England Conservatory; helping shape a new genre of music, Third Stream, the marriage of the jazz and classical worlds; his teaming with the lady vocalists--Jeanne Lee, Christine Correa, Sara Serpa, Dominque Eade; numerous ...

Article: Album Review

Claire Ritter: Soho Solo

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 8, 2015

Almost any jazz pianist you can think of has taken a shot at the solo recording. Keith Jarrett explores uncharted territory with his wholly improvised approach. Denny Zeitlin and Fred Hersch examine the Standards and some of their own outstanding compositions. Brad Mehldau brings more modern musical mix with his own distinctive tunes stirred up with ...

Article: Album Review

Jax Jazz Collective: All the Things You Are: The Music of Jerome Kern

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 1, 2015

This is a marvelous approach to making jazz recordings: picking one Great American Songbook composer at time and exploring a set of his tunes, with a personal touch. Pianist Oscar Peterson released a series of tributes to the Standards tune-smith's on Verve Record back in the 1950s, tagged “Songbooks," celebrating George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, ...

Article: Album Review

Rich Halley 4: Creating Structure

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 27, 2015

Saxophonist Rich Halley, home-based in Portland, Oregon, has put out seventeen CDs. A good handful of those, pre-2006, were released on the now-dormant Louie Records. These were mostly chordless trio and quartet affairs that showcased Halley's talent for creating category four maelstroms that gelled and bopped their way into surprisingly catchy, damned near mainstream grooves.

Article: Album Review

Roberta Piket: Emanation

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 22, 2015

Pianist Roberta Piket sat down at her instrument alone on Solo (Thirteenth Note Records, 2012). It was her first recording in the format, after and marvelous series of trio and quartet sets. An artist known for her “inside/outside" abilities and a cerebral yet emotive approach to piano, her recording debut as a solo artist was unabashedly ...

Article: Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith/ Hardedge: The Nile

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 5, 2015

Avant-garde trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has crafted epic sets, like the four disc Ten Freedom Summers (Cunieform Records, 2012), inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. And then there are the near-epics: 2014's The Great Lakes Suite (TUM Records, 2014), a two disc celebration of North America's great waterway. And sometimes he offers up, in contrast, fairly ...

Article: Album Review

Ryan Truesdell Gil Evans Project: Lines of Color

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by Dan McClenaghan
March 26, 2015

The biggest ribbons in composer/arranger Gil Evans' (1912-1988) resume are three groundbreaking Columbia Records albums he recorded with trumpeter Miles Davis: Miles Ahead (1958); Porgy and Bess (1959); and Sketches of Spain (1960). These were orchestral jazz of the finest caliber, recorded a decade after Evans' earlier work with Davis on the seminal Capitol Records set ...