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Russ Johnson: Working on the Tightrope
by Paul Olson
New York trumpet player Russ Johnson's got a substantial résumé as a sideman on projects with players like Curtis Fowlkes, Johnnie Valentino, and Jenny Scheinman, but he's perhaps best known as a co-leader with Ohad Talmor in the longstanding Other Quartet. The side projects demonstrate his astonishing versatility, sensitivity and a technique that is unsurpassed by ...
James Blood Ulmer: There is Another Place to Go
by Paul Olson
Guitarist James Blood Ulmer's played his way through a veritable history of American music. Beginning guitar as a four-year-old in 1946, Ulmer was singing professionally with the gospel group The Southern Sons while still in grade school. Ulmer went on to play guitar on the national R&B/doo-wop chitlin' circuit until he devoted himself to jazz, becoming ...
Joris Teepe: Going Dutch
by Paul Olson
Dutch-born, New York-based bassist Joris Teepe's got a great band for his seventh album, Going Dutch, and it's a considerable pleasure to listen to Teepe, drummer Gene Jackson, pianist George Colligan, saxophonist Don Braden, and trumpeter Randy Brecker interact. The program of seven Teepe originals and two covers gives the quintet plenty of room to stretch ...
Drew Gress: Where My Ear Leads Me
by Paul Olson
WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=270>Bassist Drew Gress isn't the busiest bassist ever ("I don't think so, man. What about Ron Carter?, he asked me), but he's probably playing somewhere tonight. He's played as a sideman with Don Byron, Tim Berne, Marc Copland, John Hollenbeck and Uri Caine. But his three albums under his own name--Heyday (Soul Note, 1998), ...
Erik Truffaz: Saloua
by Paul Olson
French trumpeter Erik Truffaz's sonic world is a benevolent, positive one, fusing elements of Arabic and African musics, hip-hop, groove, dub, and pop into one electronically seasoned stew. Saloua, his first CD since 2003's The Walk of the Giant Turtle, continues its eclectic synthesis of the above musical ingredients, but with new musicians. Here Truffaz's group ...
Fieldwork: Simulated Progress
by Paul Olson
It's hard to write about the collaborative trio Fieldwork. On their sophomore CD, Simulated Progress, pianist Vijay Iyer, altoist Steve Lehman, and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee play a dazzling, intrepid sort of new jazz that's as deeply interactive as anything you're likely to hear this year. This is Lehman's first CD with the band (he takes ...
Sue Mingus: "First and Foremost a Composer"
by Paul Olson
Charles Mingus (1922-1979), one of the indisputable giants of jazz, left behind a huge body of composition that, in its breadth and excellence, can be compared only to the work of Duke Ellington--or, perhaps to no one save Mingus himself. Mingus' widow, Sue Mingus, has worked to keep Mingus' work heard (although she disclaims any great ...
Rosario Giuliani: More Than Ever
by Paul Olson
There's such an abundance nowadays of great American alto players that it is easy, perhaps, to overlook an Italian player like Rosario Giuliani. The unevenness of his discography hasn't helped either. There's nothing uneven, however, about More Than Ever, as bracing a session of post-bop acoustic jazz as you're likely to hear this year. Giuliani's supported ...
Tom Christensen: Outside the Comfort Zone
by Paul Olson
Reedsman Tom Christensen's third and newest CD, New York School, may be the best jazz album of the year, but he hasn't appeared out of nowhere; his years of sidework--for example, with the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra--and his two previous albums under his own name have steadily impressed people in the jazz world, converting them to ...
Sean Jones: Gemini
by Paul Olson
The young Sean Jones has the kind of iron-lipped chops other trumpeters can only dream of. On Gemini, the followup to his 2004 debut, Eternal Journey, he's surrounded by some of the first-rate players from his previous album, like pianist Mulgrew Miller, keyboardist Orrin Evans, and altoist/flautist Tia Fuller. The playing throughout is very much up ...
