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Results for "Mike Jurkovic"
Dylan Canterbury: Going Places
by Mike Jurkovic
Let's just set the record straight from the get-go. Going Places is, hands down and thumbs up, a rousing, full throated, old-school set of rowdy, tightly spun compositions played by some of the best players the Hudson Valley region of New York has to offer. And that promises (and delivers) a sweet, sweet listen because the ...
The NYChillharmonic: Mean
by Mike Jurkovic
Having toured across five continents, you have to figure that no matter what musical element dares to share physical space within Brooklyn keyboard/vocalist Sara McDonald's brain-bending flight path, it is going to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and turned it into something forceful. Something fierce. Something startlingly her own. Leader of ...
Yaroslav Likhachev: Crumbling
by Mike Jurkovic
It was no one other than Benny Golson, who happened to be gigging in Siberia of all places, that turned young classical pianist Yaroslav Likhachev into a pure jazz enthusiast. Morphed him into a tenor saxophonist whose first outing, the craftily confident Crumbling, will have you pre-ordering it's inevitable follow-up. And that's because Likhachev, ...
Sasha Mashin: Happy Synapse
by Mike Jurkovic
Whoa! Russian born drummer Sasha Mashin kicks off his high-flying second disc with the crackling, manically modal, high-powered, retro-Impulse! speed-buzz of The Hidden Voice," written by fevered alto-saxophonist Rosario giuliani, and Happy Synapse barely lets up from there. It is a sweet sound, a really, really sweet sound. Mashin intros The Hidden Voice" like ...
Jonathan Suazo / Gabriel Vicens / Leonardo Osuna: No Base Trio
by Mike Jurkovic
There's an eery sumptuousness to the gravity-free, genre-less sound of No Base Trio that makes it incredibly difficult to get on with the day. The slant and tilt of modular sonic eruptions grab immediate attention. Its cascading, formless ambience affords strange new spaces to inhabit, explore, and contemplate during lockdown. Hailing from Puerto Rico, ...
Gordon Grdina Septet: Resist
by Mike Jurkovic
It takes a leap of unconditional faith to enter wholly the resistance. A mindset steadied for the long haul, readied for the next. On his third, integral, must-listen-to release of 2020, Canadian oudist/guitarist/composer Gordon Grdina grandly, darkly, intently, espouses all that and more. Hellbent on creating art as a political act, the sprawling, at times majestic ...
Brad Mehldau: Suite: April 2020
by Mike Jurkovic
All great artists rise to the need of the current moment and pianist Brad Mehldau, fully aware of our dire need for some sense of order amid a daily barrage of chaos on all possible fronts, rises with Suite: April 2020 a serene, solo recital recorded while sheltering with his family in their home in Amsterdam. ...
Marcin Wasilewski Trio & Joe Lovano: Arctic Riff
by Mike Jurkovic
Like standing before a frozen lake as it becomes a palette for the morning sun, Glimmer of Hope" ripens swiftly, deftly into an illuminating, direly-needed respite from the mourning that has besieged listeners. Ecstatically, it is just the preface to Arctic Riff's expansive beauty. As if conjured from mist, pianist Marcin Wasilewski's contented, yet ...
Aaron Parks: Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical Man
by Mike Jurkovic
Upon initial listening, there is a deceptive lightness-of-being borne throughout Little Big II: Dreams of A Mechanical Man that may or may not come off to some, or most, as slightly too poppy a venture. But pianist Aaron Parks and his road-running cohorts, rock toned guitarist Greg Tuohey, bassist David Ginyard, Jr and drummer/percussionist Tommy Crane, ...
SN Trio: Free Wyoming
by Mike Jurkovic
There is a lot of movie going on: The night boatman at the moors, fifty foot ants, a crisis in chaos, gulls, babies, dark climes, eccentric mimes . . . Whatever you can fancy while listening to the unruly codes of saxophonist Sam Newsome and his equally idiosyncratic, first-time rhythm section of bassist Matt Smiley and ...


