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Silvano Monasterios: Unconditional
by Greg Simmons
Miami pianist Silvano Monasterios' Unconditional doesn't announce its qualities with musical histrionics: it's far subtler than that. This collection of eight original tunes shows craftsmanship, fine improvisation and coherence. Monasterios has constructed a compelling musical statement with an emphasis on composition and attention to detail. This is an entire album, not simply a collection of songs. ...
Art Pepper: Blues For The Fisherman
by Greg Simmons
What jumps out of Art Pepper's Blues for the Fisherman is his alto saxophone's boldness and overt expressiveness. If prior exposure has only scratched the surface of Pepper's work--perhaps with the ubiquitous Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (Contemporary, 1957)--this live recording fairly smashes expectations of a polite, cool performance. Recorded in two nights at Ronnie ...
Jose Rizo's Mongorama: Jose' Rizzo's Mongorama
by Greg Simmons
Mongorama. The name just sounds like fun--and this is a fun record, despite being crafted by musicians who take the Afro-Cuban music and legacy of Mongo Santamaria very seriously. Organized by jazz DJ Jose Rizzo, the band highlights a mix of Santamaria classics, blended with newer compositions in the same tradition. Any album that ...
Mike Rood: The Desert and the City
by Greg Simmons
Mike Rood's The Desert and the City opens with an eerily ambient groove employing some unusual techniques--repetitive picked chords and some almost techno rhythmic phrasing--to create a fascinating soundscape. What's noteworthy about this effect is that it's accomplished with a very straightforward ensemble: Rood, accompanied by acoustic bass, drums, and saxophone. The effect of the opening ...
Andrei Kondakov / Igor Butman / Eddie Gomez / Lenny White: Blues for 4
by Greg Simmons
Russian music has a mile-wide streak of tragedy and sorrow running through it. If Americans hadn't invented it first, the blues could have been born on the banks of the Volga River, instead of the Mississippi. But it wasn't, so the closest thing to seeing how that might have turned out is Blues for 4, featuring ...
Swingadelic: The Other Duke
by Greg Simmons
Swingadelic has a standing Monday night gig at the New Jersey club Maxwells, which surely makes this band the greatest thing to come out of Hoboken since they built the Lincoln Tunnel. These eleven musicians--a smallish big band--blow an enormous amount of sound out of The Other Duke, a collection of Duke Pearson songs with new ...
Eric Alexander: Don't Follow the Crowd
by Greg Simmons
The title of Eric Alexander's Don't Follow the Crowd is somewhat ironic, as it is one in a string of recordings, on the HighNote label, that have all been cast from the same mold. Alexander can be counted on to deliver well-crafted, straight-ahead jazz albums that may not break any new musical ground, but are beautifully ...
The Jimmy Giuffre 3: 7 Pieces
by Greg Simmons
Fame can be fickle, meaning that someone like Jimmy Giuffre can fade into relative obscurity, remembered and appreciated by fellow musicians and a few hardcore jazz fans, while never having reached into the broader public consciousness in any measurable way. As a multi-reed artist, Giuffre was certainly one of the most original and creative ...
Marty Nau Group: Mood Ebony
by Greg Simmons
An all-clarinet album is a rare thing in jazz these days. The B-flat clarinet has an old-fashioned sound, ubiquitous in the early days of jazz, but gradually replaced by the bigger, deeper, and often more aggressive reed sound of the saxophones. Early New Orleans bands at the birth of the form almost always featured the “stick," ...
Thomas Marriott: Constraints & Liberations
by Greg Simmons
Listening to Thomas Marriott's Constraints & Liberations, two things are abundantly clear: Marriott spent some serious time studying Miles Davis' second great quintet; and, his own voice on trumpet is developed well enough to make it sound like a strong, easily recognizable influence, but not plagiarism. Naturally, favorable comparison to the one of the greatest standing ...
