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Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard
by J Hunter
"The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra holds sway Monday nights"--so says the Village Vanguard's minuscule listing in the “Goings On About Town" section of The New Yorker magazine. Other acts come and go, but the VJO--the hellacious big band once co-captained by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis--just keeps on keeping on. Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard ...
Giacomo Gates: Luminosity
by J Hunter
"Begin at the beginning," the King told the White Rabbit, “and go on until you come to the end. Then stop." Normally, that's good advice, except in the case of Luminosity, a sparkling CD/DVD package that proves Giacomo Gates is all about commitment--to his listeners, to his fellow musicians (past and present), and to jazz and ...
Jane Ira Bloom: Mental Weather
by J Hunter
Since 2000, Chamber Music America has put its imprint on jazz by supporting projects by (among others) Dave Douglas, Ben Allison, Don Byron and Ryan Cohan. But while Cohan's multi-hued plea for peace One Sky (Justin Time, 2008) operates on a macro scale, saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom's Mental Weather is much more intimate, though no less ...
Gonzalo Rubalcaba: Avatar
by J Hunter
Listening to Avatar--pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba's first release since 2006--is kind of like eating unshelled lobster: It takes hard work and a will of iron to get to the meat. And while that meat may be succulent to some, the taste may not be for everybody. The problem originates with the “shell" that surrounds most of the ...
Dianne Reeves: When You Know
by J Hunter
The liner notes on When You Know offer the possibility of greatness: Geoffrey Keezer and Billy Childs split time on keyboards; Russell Malone lends his wizardry to most of the date; and the rhythm section is top notch, whether it's manned by Reuben Rogers and Greg Hutchinson, or by Reginald Veal and Antonio Sanchez. Then there's ...
Horace Silver: Live at Newport '58
by J Hunter
The John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk Quartet earth-shaker At Carnegie Hall (Blue Note, 2005) set a pretty high watermark, and other historical recordings inevitably have a lot to live up to. Pianist Horace Silver's Live at Newport '58 is very good, and is certainly historically significant, but is it Carnegie Hall good? Perhaps not quite.
Pat Metheny: Day Trip
by J Hunter
Although Pat Metheny gets top billing on Day Trip, this is not a one-off superstar meetup, a la 80/81 (ECM, 1980), Question and Answer (Geffen Records, 1990), and I Can See Your House from Here (Blue Note, 1993). Metheny has toured with Christian McBride and Antonio Sanchez, on and off, for the past few years; on ...
Ron Blake: Shayari
by J Hunter
If you've heard bassist Christian McBride's blazing Live at Tonic (RopeaDope, 2006), then you're familiar with the powers of Ron Blake. On some tracks, Blake blasts soul-drenched tenor in the same vein as Junior Walker; on others, he launches solos that approache the same technical and emotional level visited by Wayne Shorter. Blake's overall performance on ...
Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures: Dream Garden
by J Hunter
During his formative years in Chicago and Detroit, percussionist Adam Rudolph sat at the feet of a number of fantastic musicians, most notably Don Cherry and Fred Anderson. Combine that mentoring with Rudolph's years-long study of African and Indian rhythm traditions, and you get Cyclic Verticalism--a compositional matrix that allows the prolific percussionist's players to create ...
SFJAZZ Collective: Live at Jazz a Vienne
by J Hunter
SFJAZZ CollectiveLive at Jazz à VienneSFJAZZ2008While the repertory on Live at Jazz à Vienne comes from SFJazz Collective's then-unreleased CD Live 2007: 4th Annual Concert Tour (SFJAZZ), the unit that ambles onstage here and launches into the chaotic opening of Thelonious Monk's “Brilliant Corners is very different from ...
