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Rich Halley 4: Back From Beyond
by Dan McClenaghan
Tenor saxophonist Rich Halley can be relied upon to rip it up, either live or in the studio. His forte is free jazz that always seems to threaten to power into some steroidal bebop. He has released a string of fine records on the now-dormant Louie Records--including, perhaps the best of these, the no-holds-barred The Blue ...
Marc Copland: Some More Love Songs
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Marc Copland--who, oddly, began his jazz career as a saxophonist--took an artistic leap forward with his three New York Trio recordings on Pirouet Records. Employing a rotating crew of bassists with Gary Peacock, Drew Gress, and drummers Paul Motian and Bill Stewart, the pianist rose to a higher profile via his nearly unsurpassed musical excellence. ...
Eddie Gomez: Per Sempre
by Dan McClenaghan
Taken as a cohesive statement--a one-hour piece of art in a world of downloads and diminishing attention spans--bassist Eddie Gomez's Per Sempre stands out, with the minor and enviable disadvantage of opening with the set's loveliest tune, Arianna." Good news/good news: the rest of this superb outing is just a notch--a small one--below that level of ...
Human Spirit: Dialogue
by Dan McClenaghan
The three players who now call themselves Human Spirit--drummer Matt Jorgensen, trumpeter Thomas Marriott and alto saxophonist Mark Taylor--have a very successful track record of recording together. They teamed up on Jorgensen's magnificent Tattooed by Passion (2010) and Another Morning (2008), and on Marriott's strange and splendid Crazy: The Music of Willie Nelson (2008) and Flexicon ...
Dan Cavanagh Trio: The Heart of the Geyser
by Dan McClenaghan
There's no arguing that the best of the best in the piano trio field comes from the longterm units: on the younger end of the spectrum there's Brad Mehldau's group with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard, who replaced his long term predecessor in that chair, Jorge Rossy; and, of course, on the legendary end, ...
Mark Soskin: Nino Rota
by Dan McClenaghan
Mark Soskin is probably best known for his work with saxophone legend Sonny Rollins. As Rollins' pianist from 1978 to 1991, he contributed to a string of several marvelous CD releases on the Milestone label. These included Dancing in the Dark (1987), which opened with a masterfully straightforward cover of the pop song, Just Once," that ...
Mike Freeman: The Vibesman
by Dan McClenaghan
The sound of the vibraphone glows--a ringing and sustained sonic luminescence. Current masters of the instrument include Gary Burton, Joe Locke, Bobby Hutcherson, and the perhaps lesser-known but also masterful Mike Freeman. With his percussion-soaked group Zonavibe--that includes, besides the vibes, the sounds of marimba, and kalimba, congas, bongos, campana and timbales--Freeman stirs up ...
Amit Friedman Sextet: Sunrise
by Dan McClenaghan
This seems to be shaping up as the year of the Sunrise." Two outstanding sets by that name have been released in 2012: one by the Masabumi Kikuchi Trio on ECM Records, the other a self-produced gem by the Indo/American chamber ensemble, Karavika. Israeli saxophonist Amit Friedman makes it a triptych with his own Sunrise, on ...
Todd Bishop Group: Little Played Little Bird
by Dan McClenaghan
Fans of alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman have had to sit through a long wait since the free jazz pioneer's last recording, Sound Grammar (Sound Grammar Records, 2006), a marvelous set that garnered the artist a Pulitzer Prize. Those fans are still waiting, though the iconic jazz man has teased them with his bits and pieces (non-album ...
Sebastian Gille: Anthem
by Dan McClenaghan
The most famous and venerable German record label is ECM Records, Manfred Eicher's brainchild, founded in 1969 and still going strong with now more than twelve hundred recordings in its catalog. But there is a German upstart, Pirouet Records, which has been in the business of offering up its own musical vision since the early 2000s, ...


