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Article: Album Review

Danny Fox Trio: Wide Eyed

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 19, 2014

The Danny Fox Trio is a working band, which is something of a rarity these days. But for building a rapport and depth of communication, there isn't a substitute for touring together and working out the musical problems and over an extended period of time. This New York City-based piano trio that debuted with The One ...

Article: Album Review

Jessica Williams: With Love

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 13, 2014

Successful musicians play “the truth." If you want to hear some truth there are certain artists you can seek out. Thelonious Monk couldn't play anything but the truth, right from the beginning. Pianist Jessica Williams came upon the truth--a purer form of it, at least--after experiencing “the fix of Illness" that she has discussed on her ...

Article: Album Review

Antonio Adolfo: Rio, Choro, Jazz...

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by Dan McClenaghan
April 4, 2014

For the more casual fans, Bossa Nova is the Brazilian contribution to music. But there's more than that, and a background from which the popularization of Brazilian sound began in America via saxophonist Stan Getz' teamings with Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim on Getz/Gilberto (Verve Records, 1963) and guitarist Charlie Byrd for Jazz Samba (Verve ...

Article: Album Review

Tyler Blanton: Gotham

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by Dan McClenaghan
March 29, 2014

New York City is the Mecca for musicians, jazz and otherwise. Tributes to the metropolis meet with varying degrees of success. Guitarist/vocalist Lou Reed captured the mood and tone of the big city with his finest recorded outing, New York (Sire Records, 1989). Saxophonist Bob Belden, via his quintet called “Animation," gave the town a menacing ...

Article: Album Review

Leslie Pintchik: In the Nature of Things

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by Dan McClenaghan
March 26, 2014

Pianist Leslie Pintchik takes advantage her her New York home base on her recordings by enlisting some of the city's most innovative musicians to help her share her vision. On previous three CD releases Pintchik has sculpted a seductive sound that combines the cerebral with engaging and beautiful, much in the mode of piano legend Herbie ...

Article: Album Review

Lena Bloch: Feathery

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by Dan McClenaghan
March 16, 2014

Russian-born tenor saxophonist Lena Bloch carries a cool burning torch for the music of saxophonist Warne Marsh and the Lennie Tristano school of jazz. For Feathery, her debut CD as a leader, Bloch has assembled a quartet that can rival the loose and interactive and spontaneous ensembles of alto saxophonist Lee Konitz--a Tristano acolyte and Bloch's ...

Article: Album Review

Juhani Aaltonen: To Future Memories

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by Dan McClenaghan
March 5, 2014

Helsinki-based TUM Records, launched in 2003, “promotes more experienced musicians whose work is not favored by commercial trends of our time." The label is especially supportive of the freer end of jazz's spectrum, offering up albums like Kolibri by Finish pianist/harpist Iro Haarla, violinist Billy Bang's Da Bang, and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's Occupy the World, ...

Article: Album Review

Entrevero Instrumental: Exodo

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by Dan McClenaghan
March 2, 2014

The award-winning Brazilian ensemble, Entrevero Instrumental, opens their Exodo CD with a burst of sound, an energetic melding of accordion, bass, drums, saxophone and seven string guitar. The tune is “Folha Negra." It, and the rest of the music of the set, celebrates in vivacious style the rhythms of southern Brazil. Arthur Boscato's seven string guitar ...

Article: Album Review

Pete Mills: Sweet Shadow

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by Dan McClenaghan
February 24, 2014

A lot of words have clicked out of the keyboards concerning the possible demise of the compact disc. Maybe CDs will suffer the extinction, maybe not. But one thing is sure: saxophonist Pete Mills' Sweet Shadow is an excellent argument for the survival of the species. On his fourth release as a leader, Mills ...

Article: Album Review

Birchall & Woolhouse: The Scenery of Life Unfolding

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by Dan McClenaghan
February 17, 2014

Piano trio albums--piano, bass and drums--may be the more common means of artistic expression in jazz, but piano/bass duet sets come long fairly often, too. Bassist Charlie Haden is a master of the approach, proof of which can be found on his teamings with pianists Keith Jarrett and Hank Jones on, respectively, Jasmine (ECM Records, 2011) ...