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Results for "Thelonious Monk"
Misha Mengelberg: Rituals Of Transition
by Mark Corroto
It takes a master to speak like a child. Pianist Misha Mengelberg (1935-2017) was such a giant at the keyboard that he could shed all pretension and improvise with a simple innocence. Call it Zen enlightenment or just a blunt brilliance. His music is often absurd and paradoxical, like an inside joke, except he graciously lets ...
Dave Brubeck: Lullabies
by Doug Hall
Unlike other unearthed discoveries from seminal jazz musicians, pianist Dave Brubeck's Lullabies(Verve, 2020) is not an extension of studio material from his quartet years with alto saxophone master Paul Desmond or a bootlegged recording caught in a nightclub setting. In contrast, archival recordings uncovered since 2018 by other seminal artists such as John Coltrane on Both ...
Sarah McKenzie: A Mysterious Thing Called Songwriting
by Emmanuel Di Tommaso
Secrets of My Heart is the fifth studio album of the Australian singer, composer and pianist Sarah McKenzie. Released in 2019, this album represents a joyous and uncanny combination of classical jazz standards and new original compositions with a brilliant fusion between jazz, blues and latin sounds. We took the opportunity of the European tour of ...
Michael Sarian: New Aurora
by Jerome Wilson
Trumpeter Michael Sarian leads two large-sized groups, The Chabones and The Big Chabones, that utilize multiple horns and electronic sounds in high energy arrangements. This quartet recording is a different story. Sarian is the lone horn here, playing trumpet on the first track and flugelhorn on the rest, while the music itself is strictly acoustic. Much ...
Yusef Lateef: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Blowing Cultural Nationalism Out Of The Water
by Chris May
A pioneer of global and modal jazz, the multi-instrumentalist and composer Yusef Lateef is only beginning to have his importance in the history of the music properly acknowledged. After languishing off-catalogue for decades, much of his output is being made available once more. A treasure trove of great jazz is out there waiting to be rediscovered. ...
Joachim Mencel: Brooklyn Eye
by Dan Bilawsky
Growing up under the weight of communism in Poland in the late '60s and early '70s, Joachim Mencel dreamed of the freedoms and wonders of America. Stateside relatives sent food parcels, offering him his first tastes of Hershey's chocolate and the inviting aromas of Maxwell House coffee; and Polish public radio station Trójka filled his ears ...
Charles Mingus: @ Bremen 1964 & 1975
by Chris May
Four hours of previously unissued, premier-league music by Charles Mingus is something to shout about, and @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 is about as good as the bassist and composer's posthumously released live albums get. Four CDs chronicle two extended, intense performances recorded in Germany by Radio Bremen. Both gigs featured all-star bands and both are ...
Guitarist Jack DeSalvo: While We Sleep & Quintrepid on Unseen Rain
by Mark Sullivan
Guitarist/composer Jack DeSalvo has had a long, diverse career emphasizing fusion and free playing. His most visible gig was with Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, but since co-founding the record label Unseen Rain Records he has played on or produced a wide variety of music. For example, his duet album Soldani Dieci Anni (Unseen Rain Records, ...
Rahsaan Roland Kirk: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Guaranteed To Bend Your Head
by Chris May
Jazz musicians are rarely called shamanistic but the description fits Rahsaan Roland Kirk precisely. Clad in black leather trousers and heavy duty shades (he was blind from the age of two), a truckload of strange looking horns strung round his neck—two or three of which he often played simultaneously--twisting, shaking and otherwise contorting his body, stamping ...
Diego Urcola Quartet: El Duelo
by Mark Sullivan
The cover of this album shows Diego Urcola (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Paquito D'Rivera (alto saxophone, clarinet) back-to-back, as if about to engage in the titular duel. But the sound is that of two veteran players jointly taking a leap into the unknown. A quartet without piano is an unusual setting for both of them. D'Rivera's liner ...
