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For All Time
by Joshua Weiner
Popularity is double-edged, and perhaps no jazz artist exemplifies this better than Dave Brubeck. The unparalleled success of his classic quartets with Paul Desmond, which expanded the market for jazz into colleges and the homes of suburbia, often obscured his very real musical innovations. The ever-increasing professional sheen of Brubeck's '60s albums for Columbia, his interest ...
Saga: Färger
by Joshua Weiner
Art Farmer made a great record with Jim Hall in the '60s entitled To Sweden With Love. If Färger, the debut album by the piano trio Saga, is any indication, Sweden is more than ready to return some of that love. By turns moody, joyous, exuberant, and somber, Saga plays jazz that mixes Scandinavian folk flavors, ...
Jim Ridl: Door in a Field
by Joshua Weiner
"Concept" albums are commonplace in jazz these days, and some artists seem to release nothing but. On the best of these, the idea behind the record adds depth and cohesion to the music within, but too often we end up with weak conceits masking lack of invention (think about all the “. . .plays Jobim", or ...
Jim Hall: Live!
by Joshua Weiner
Jim Hall is our greatest living jazz guitarist, and probably one of our greatest jazz musicians, regardless of instrument, to boot. So why, despite being widely acclaimed by jazz aficionados, is he not exactly a household name? It probably has to do with his innately self-effacing demeanor, both on and off the bandstand. Beginning in the ...
Cuckooland
by Joshua Weiner
The marriage of jazz and rock musical styles has had a checkered history. The late '60s records of Cannonball Adderley, Gary Burton, Tony Williams, and Miles Davis stretched the boundaries of jazz music while successfully bringing it to a broad young audience. The later development of Fusion with a capital “F" by Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To ...
Eliane Elias: Brazilian Classics
by Joshua Weiner
Now that longtime Blue Note pianist/singer Eliane Elias has left the label for RCA/Bluebird, several compilations of her work are being released, including the present item, Brazilian Classics. A cynic might note “just in time for Christmas,” but even if its release is motivated mainly by marketing concerns, the CD provides a useful, focused troll through ...
Rale Micic: Bridges
by Joshua Weiner
Although jazz is, in several respects, a truly American musical idiom, it has spread to the far reaches of the globe in the modern era. This dissemination has led to the appearance of excellent jazz musicians in unexpected places, and the Serbian-born guitarist Rale Micic (pronounced 'Rah-leh Mee-cheech') is a fine example. His first-rate debut album, ...
Phil Woods: Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine at the Montreux Jazz Festival
by Joshua Weiner
The consolidation of many record companies into a few mega-conglomerates worries a lot of music lovers, and there is certainly a danger of homogenization to a degree even greater than that already extant. There are up sides, however, and Verve Music Group/Universal’s recent spate of LP reproduction reissues is one. The acquisition of the catalogs of ...
Achille Gajo Trio: Blue Sand
by Joshua Weiner
As enjoyable as it is to encounter a new recording by a long-established artist, even greater pleasure can be found in the discovery of an outstanding lesser-known talent. Such is the case with Blue Sand, the new release by Italian-born, Paris-based pianist Achille Gajo and his trio. Gajo's compatriots include bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel and drummer John ...
Dorothy Ashby: Afro-Harping
by Joshua Weiner
Cue up “Soul Vibrations,” the first track on Verve’s reissue of Dorothy Ashby’s Afro Harping, and revel: a one-note syncopated bass line over a slamming drumbeat that you’re sure you’ve heard sampled somewhere. Enter the double-tracked theremins, followed by swoopy strings. Next, over the relentless beat, an echo-plexed harp solo by Ashby, during which the strings ...
