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OSU Jazz Orchestra: Room 118
by Jack Bowers
Room 118 honors the space in the Seretean Center for the Performing Arts wherein the splendid Oklahoma State University Jazz Orchestra and other on-campus jazz groups held their rehearsals for many years. There must be something special there, as the OSU ensemble is one of the most well-rehearsed university-level jazz ensembles you're likely to encounter this ...
Dino Govoni: Hiding in Plain Sight
by Jack Bowers
Tenor saxophonist Dino Govoni acquits himself well on the curiously-titled Hiding in Plain Sight, his third album for Whaling City Sound, as do his colleagues on this basically bop-leaning, mainly quintet studio date. The qualifier “mainly" is necessary because trumpeter Alex Sipiagin performs on only five of the album's nine tracks. On the others, Govoni is ...
Anthony Wonsey: Lorraine's Lullabye
by Jack Bowers
As it “takes a village" to raise a child, writes Anthony Wonsey, it also takes a village to raise a jazz pianist, and Lorraine's Lullabye is Wonsey's way of saying “thank you" to many of those who have helped and nurtured him throughout his journey including New York educator and social worker Lorraine Tiezzi, the album's ...
Temple University Jazz Band: Without You, No Me
by Jack Bowers
When his friend, colleague, mentor and confidante Jimmy Heath died in January 2020, trumpeter Terell Stafford's first impulse was to find a way to honor and remember the renowned Philadelphia-born saxophonist. As Stafford is director of the Temple University Jazz Band, also in Philadelphia, an obvious way would be to record a tribute album, which Stafford ...
Phil Parisot: Inventions
by Jack Bowers
Even at a time when jazz has broadened its horizons to encompass music from a wide variety of sources, it is not often that one happens upon a jazz album inspired by the life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach. However, that is the premise animating drummer Phil Parisot's sunlit Inventions, an astute post-bop session wherein ...
Jazzlab Orchestra: Loguslabusmuzikus
by Jack Bowers
The Jazzlab Orchestra, formed in 2004 and based in Montreal, Canada, lies somewhere short of orchestra-size. It's actually an octet—but don't let that deter you; the unison passages are generally robust and pleasing. Jazzlab does play jazz of a sort, music that may best be described as contemporary cerebral. In other words, this is not akin ...
Mary Kay Riley: My Take
by Jack Bowers
Actress and singer Mary Kay Riley dips her toes gingerly into the recording pool with My Take, an amiable yet concise album whose five songs encompass a total playing time of twenty minutes. This may (or may not) be Riley's first such endeavor, as there are no liner notes and scant information about her on the ...
Funky Ella: I Put a Spell on You
by Jack Bowers
Although singer Leslie Lewis and her husband, pianist Gerard Hagen, have been making beautiful music together for some years and recorded five earlier CDs together, I Put a Spell on You is the first under the group name Funky Ella (which represents a deep bow to another jazz singer of note). The album was recorded in ...
Houston Person: Live in Paris
by Jack Bowers
The greatest jazz musicians have one trait in common; they make everything sound so ridiculously easy that listeners are liable to lose sight of the blood, sweat and tears which brought them to that pinnacle. Tenor saxophonist Houston Person, an octogenarian who keeps sidestepping every obstacle including Father Time, is one such master; regardless of groove ...
Kristian Borring: Out of Nowhere
by Jack Bowers
After coming of age in his home country, Danish-born guitarist Kristian Borring relocated to the U.K. where he became a stalwart fixture on the jazz scene and released four albums as leader of his own groups. Out of Nowhere is the fifth, recorded in 2019, shortly before the coronavirus pandemic struck, and featuring as before a ...
