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Michael Robinson's Piano Improvisations: Seven Albums of Unique Takes on Standards
by Hrayr Attarian
Keyboardist Michael Robinson is a prolific and creative artist who is best known for his haunting, Eastern-inspired, musical soundscapes. He usually utilizes his own invention, the digital Meruvina, for these recordings. Robinson, however, is also an accomplished pianist and has self-produced several superb solo albums of piano improvisations. In 2021 and 2022 he released seven of ...
Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia: Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?
by Doug Collette
It was back in 1968 that the Bonzo Dog Band tendered the immortal question in this article's title, but it remains an interrogatory relevant to our times. In the sizable community devoted to blues music around the world, passion for music too often leads to posing by too many practitioners of the genre. Not so with ...
Sass Jordan & Dana Fuchs: Two Chanteuses' Blues
by Doug Collette
When performed with style, grace and depth of feeling, singing the blues is a wonder to behold. But when such virtues are replaced by histrionics, affectation and musical self-indulgence, the performers and the performances fall flat. In building their respective careers of no little renown, Sass Jordan and Dana Fuchs have both proven they can deliver ...
Guitar Trios x 5
by Mark Sullivan
Several recent releases provide evidence that the classic guitar trio (guitar, bass and drums) is alive and well, even in the midst of a pandemic. It remains a format with a broad array of stylistic possibilities. As it happens, none of these groups are from North America, but they include several from European countries and one ...
Good Vibes
by Jerome Wilson
Vibraphone players have never been as plentiful in jazz as trumpeters or saxophonists but there have been several notable ones over the years, going from Red Norvo and Milt Jackson in the past to Joel Ross and Patricia Brennan today. Here are a pair of recent albums that feature other active vibes players. Roberto ...
The Blue Notes: Refugees From Race Hate
by Chris May
In late May 2022, three months into the war in Ukraine, the plight of refugees is at the front of our minds. Around five million Ukrainians have become refugees and another seven million are displaced persons inside their own country. The apartheid-era South African refugee crisis was not on this scale. The number of internally displaced ...
Henry Kaiser & Rome Yamilov and Bernard Allison: Blues Changes
by Doug Collette
Is blues music the most mutable of all musical forms? It's a question worth asking when taking into account the expanse of styles within the genre that stretch all the way from the skeletal acoustic likes of Son House and Reverend Gary Davis to the earthshaking electric onslaughts of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Henry ...
Mary Halvorson: Alchemist Supreme
by Doug Collette
Produced and mixed by John Dieterich, with complementary cover art of paintings by DM Stith, the two companion pieces constituting the Nonesuch Records debut by Brooklyn-based guitarist, composer and MacArthur fellow Mary Halvorson restore truth to the often-cliched phrase 'the complete package.' Amaryllis features master improvisers in the company of a string quartet rendering arrangements devised ...
Two new composers on Another Timbre
by John Eyles
As previously noted, Another Timbre's releases cover a broad spectrum, from world-renowned composers and players, through those who are upwardly mobile, to those making their debut on the label. In addition, although the label is firmly established in Sheffield, England, it continues to cast its net far and wide in search of interesting, innovative and exploratory ...
Son House and Reverend Gary Davis: The Perpetual Appeal Of The Blues
by Doug Collette
Perfectly complementary in their earthy simplicity, the archive titles by Son House and Reverend Gary Davis offer an antidote to the antiseptic ephemera that is contemporary pop. None other than Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys curated the former's Forever On My Mind (and released it on his own Easy Eye Sound label) while the latter's ...
