Home » Search Center » Results: Play This!
Results for "Play This!"
Reuben Fowler: Too Minor
by Scott Lichtman
Here's a mystery: What happened to composer and big band leader prodigy Reuben Fowler? In 2012 to 2013, not yet much into his twenties, Fowler won 5-star ratings and numerous best-recording awards for his debut jazz orchestra recording, Between Shadows (Edition Records, 2013). Every song on the album is a highly satisfying listen, blending crisp arrangements, ...
Tribal Tech: Solemn
by Mike Jacobs
On its way to becoming the stalwart fusion quartet it was in the '90s, Tribal Tech underwent more than a few personnel changes. (TT was more of a non-touring, studio entity in its early days.) One who held the keyboard chair for a scant two songs was Will Boulware. His presence on Dr. Hee (Relativity, 1987) ...
Us3: Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)
by Scott Lichtman
Jazz often reinvents itself by melding established sounds and techniques with the latest forms of popular music. In the early '90s, jazz turned its ear to hip hop, and the first seminal mash-up appeared: “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)" by Us3. It's a “funky, funky" tune based on Herbie Hancock's 1964 recording, “Cantaloupe Island." English group Us3 demonstrated ...
Mike Miller Quintet: World Goes Round Parts 1 & 2
by Mike Jacobs
The title track(s) from guitarist Mike Miller's World Goes Round (Wakonda Music, 2008), separated on the album, are here placed in sequence for your listening pleasure. The initial melancholy of the Bacharach-tinged Part 1 eventually gives way to its hopeful out-cycle. In part 2, that out-cycle finds a life of its own, seemingly reaffirming the promise ...
Ben Monder: Hydra
by Mike Jacobs
Stylistically hard-to-describe artists are nothing new. However, with Ben Monder's solo excursions, one often feels the need to issue a warning/disclaimer that might read something like, “Caution--Exiting Known Musical Universe." The 24-minute title track from his album Hydra (Sunnyside, 2013) indeed melds techniques and generic signposts from jazz, rock, medieval and modern classical music, but it ...
Iiro Rantala: Goldberg Variation III
by Scott Lichtman
Finnish pianist and composer Iiro Rantala (pronounced “Ee'-ro Rahn'-tah-lah") is a grand master of jazz, classical music, and film scores; he even serves as a UN goodwill ambassador. Give him a Django Reinhardt-like gipsy swing piece, or an Art Tatum stride, or a Keith Jarrett solo improv, and he'll respond with even greater flow, tighter precision, ...
Ken Peplowski: All the Things You Are
by John Chacona
Even if you are new to jazz, you have likely heard “All the Things You Are" dozens of times, maybe hundreds. But you have never heard it like this. Jerome Kern's tour through the circle of fifths, catnip for improvisers, is usually played as a mid-tempo stroll or faster, but it was written as a ballad ...
