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Article: Extended Analysis

Ryan Truesdell: Centennial - Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans

by Dan McClenaghan
July 13, 2012

Ryan TruesdellCentennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil EvansArtistShare2012Composer/arranger/pianist Gil Evans broke new ground in the arena of arranging in the late 1940s with the Claude Thornhill Orchestra, and the 1949-50 singles which later came out as the album Birth of the Cool (Columbia Records, 1957), made up of ...

Article: Album Review

Virginia Mayhew Quartet: Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years

Read "Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
July 10, 2012

Saxophonist Virginia Mayhew is a rare forward-looking jazz artist who doesn't mind looking back. She leads the Duke Ellington Legacy, responsible for the superb Thank You Uncle Edward (Renma Recordings, 2007) and Single Pedal of a Rose (Renma Recordings, 2012). Now she honors Mary Lou Williams (1910-1983) in this tribute to the groundbreaking pianist/composer/arranger's one hundredth ...

Article: Album Review

Bill Carrothers: Family Life

Read "Family Life" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 21, 2012

Minnesota-born pianist Bill Carrothers made the seemingly obligatory to pilgrimage to New York and spent five years there, doing the hustle and hang for work. That's how it's done in the jazz world. Or not. After five unhappy years in the Big Apple, Carrothers packed up his piano and moved to Michigan's Upper Peninsula--not exactly a ...

Article: Album Review

Sumi Tonooka: Now

by Dan McClenaghan
June 19, 2012

Sumi Tonooka is a resourceful jazz pianist who, along with alto saxophonist Chris Burnett and tenor saxophonist Erica Lindsay, started the Artists Recording Collective, offering up Initiation (2010), an excellent quartet outing which Tonooka co-led with Lindsay, and a more intimate Tonooka-led trio effort, Long Ago Today (2008). A former student of piano legend Mary Lou ...

Article: Album Review

Nate Radley: The Big Eyes

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by Dan McClenaghan
June 16, 2012

Guitarist Nate Radley has turned in some great sideman performances. On alto saxophonist Loren Stillman's Winter Fruits (Pirouet, 2009), he teamed with organist Gary Versace and drummer Ted Poor for one of that year's more unusual--and unusually fine--recordings; and in 2010, he joined another intrepid saxophonist, Marc Mommaas, on the modernistic Landmarc, a string-heavy set with ...

Article: Album Review

Rich Halley 4: Back From Beyond

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by Dan McClenaghan
June 8, 2012

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 ...

Article: Album Review

Marc Copland: Some More Love Songs

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by Dan McClenaghan
June 2, 2012

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. ...

Article: Album Review

Eddie Gomez: Per Sempre

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 31, 2012

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 ...

Article: Album Review

Human Spirit: Dialogue

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by Dan McClenaghan
May 18, 2012

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 ...

Article: Album Review

Dan Cavanagh Trio: The Heart of the Geyser

Read "The Heart of the Geyser" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 10, 2012

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, ...