BOLO: BOLO

There is an ancestral vocation that devout musicians draw inspiration and bearing from. Once on this chosen spiritual path, they enter into a mesmerizing plateau of creativity which is only accessible through profound belief in the task at hand, and a complete mastery of their instrument. The multi...

Ivo Perelman: Counterpoint

Tenor sax strongman Ivo Perelman underscores the objective for this release, advising that "This combination, with viola and guitar--I've never before used this particular grouping ... I knew it would be challenging, with dense textures and this three-part counterpoint." However, the respective musi...

Sunny Kim and Ben Monder: The Shining Sea: Live at Olympus Hall

People who know me know that I am not particularly interested in jazz vocals or straight-up renditions of jazz standards. One of my hobbies is playing the drums, and I am also not really motivated to listen to music without drums or some sort of percussion. So, I put off reviewing The Shining Sea: L...

Michael Vlatkovich: Mortality

Wow. Where to start? Apropos of its title, Mortality is huge. Vast. Complex. Quixotic. Musically, it's a mega-ambitious work that fuses operatic vocals, several styles of jazz, heavily-scored contemporary classical music and flat-out improvisational wailing in the most appealing ways possible. Inter...

Konstantin Scherbakov: Eroica

Why Konstantin Scherbakov? Why Beethoven? Why ask Why? In the Book of Exodus, when Moses asked God what to call Him, God said, "I AM WHO I AM." Same thing with Scherbakov and Beethoven. Scherbakov is a Beethoven monster who recorded the Liszt transcriptions of the Beethoven Symphonies in the late-19...

Juan Dhas: Embracing Clarity

Guitarist m: Juan Dhas's full name is Juan Diego Chandra Dhas which gives some idea of his initial life influences through his Colombian mother and Indian father. After getting a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in 2010, and graduating in 2014, Dhas recorded Embracing Clarity...

DaymA(C) Arocena: Nueva Era

In one of the most interesting commerce and art collaborations of recent times, Cuba's famed rum Havana Club, with its Havana Cultura project, has joined forces with the local Cuban artist community to promote Cuban culture throughout the world. Covering a wide variety of musical styles and genres w...

Mads la Cour's Almugi: Quartet

Almugi is an ancient Scandinavian word that describes free men of the Kingdom who are gifted with exceptional goodness. It is also the name of an ongoing musical project of Danish cornet and trumpet player Mads la Cour, member of the Danish Radio Big Band. The first recording of this project feature...

Dave Douglas: High Risk

A leading trumpeter and composer, Dave Douglas has never been content staying in one location for too long. Within his already diverse discography, he's produced imaginative music with numerous ensembles that include the intrepidly free Tiny Bell Trio; an acoustic-electric sextet Keystone; vivid ref...

Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers Super Deluxe Box Set

Year in and year out, much is made of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street (Universal Music Group, 1972/2010) (EOMS) being the "greatest rock and roll album." It is traditionally beaten out in most critics' and readers' polls by either The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Parlophon...

Juliet Kelly: Spellbound Stories

Eleven songs, all inspired by favorite novels, form Spellbound Stories, vocalist and songwriter Juliet Kelly's fourth album. It's a stylistically disparate collection, centered on Kelly's light and welcoming vocal. Exactly which novels gave Kelly her inspiration isn't made clear by the songs (except...

Jean-Michel Pilc, Marilyn Mazur, Mads Vinding: Composing

A magical mystery tour with two heavies of the avant garde and one good old reliable jazz bassist who fits in anywhere. To be more precise: American/Danish percussionist Marilyn Mazur, she of the frizzy hair and intense eyes; French pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, he of the goatee beard and dark, moody ga...

Glostrup Trioen/Alice Carreri: Spirit

Some time between 1000 and 1197, the Danish village of Glostrup was founded by a man called Glob. In the 17th century it comprised eight farms and 13 houses. Today, engulfed as a suburb by the capital Copenhagen, it even boasts its own jazz trio. Its members, Torben Kjaer (piano), Henrik Dhyrbye (ba...

Steve Barta: Symphonic Arrangement: Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio

French composer and pianist Claude Bolling achieved what might be considered the best example the Gunther Schuller's "Third Stream" that elusive synthesis of classical music and jazz improvisation, in his Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio (CBS Masterworks, 1975). Bolling composed the seven-part mu...

Francois Carrier/Michel Lambert: iO

Listening to the nine improvised duets on saxophonist m: FranA ois Carrier and Michel Lambert's latest release iO, one gets the sense the creative process comes not from friction, but from friendship. The music isn't forged from a skirmish, like, say a Peter Brotzmann/{{m: Han Be...

Buddy Rich: Birdland

There's usually a reason why previously unreleased material was never initially offered for consumer consumption, whether it's due to subpar sound quality, less than adequate material or blasA(C) musicians' outtakes and so on. However, these tracks by the Buddy Rich Killer Force band were recorded at...

Lorin Cohen: Home

What's "home?" Is it where somebody's born and raised? Is it where a person resides at a given time? Or is it any place where an individual finds a high level of comfort, joy, and possibility? For Lorin Cohen, it's all three. This talented bassist-composer makes that fact plainly apparent on this, h...

Take Five with Aaron Akins

Aaron Akins' music is something out of the ordinary.A After all, a voice strongly reminiscent of Nat "King" Cole wrapped up in a sophisticated urban beat is not something heard every day. Stir the ingredients, jazz it up a little, and Aaron Akins might be it.A Produced by DarrylA Swann (Macy Gray)...

Ode To Omni: Anchors

The Philadelphia based collaborative group, Ode to Omni continues its intriguing forays into spiritual jazz with its second release, the live recording, Anchors. Under percussionist Marcus Myers' leadership the band interprets four long and cinematic Myers originals with a sublime blend of raw p...

Tom Collier: Alone in the Studio

Percussionist Tom Collier has the solo touch. His previous recording, Tom Collier: Plays Haydn, Mozart, Telemann and Others (Origin, 2012) had the vibraphonist and educator making his way through a Baroque and classical recitals to great effect. Presently, Collier strolls through some originals and...

Steel Bridge Trio: Different Clocks

Heard at the imaginary music awards ceremony, "and the winner of the quietest and most accessible avant-garde recording of 2015 (dramatic pause), Different Clocks by Steel Bridge Trio." "Accepting the award for the trio is Jimmy Giuffre and m: Eric Dolphy. If there were such awards, a...

Daniel Smith: Jazz Suite for Bassoon

Jazz Suite is the second album by bassoonist m: Daniel Smith to be reviewed in these precincts (Smokin' Hot Bassoon Blues was the first). This one is far more agreeable, for at least two reasons: first, the territory Smith traverses seems to be relatively more familiar (especially the "Ba...

Dre Hocevar Trio: Coding Of Evidentiality

Given the title of drummer Dre Hocevar's recording, the question arises: can one classify or identify a system's disorder, i.e. entropy? The liner notes give us a hint. Laurence Donohue-Greene writes, this trio of Hocevar, pianist Bram De Looze and cellist St.Louis, "develop each improvisation compo...

Jack Wright / Ben Wright: as if anything could be the same

It's only apropos that I am writing this review on Father's Day. As if anything could be the same is a duet album by the father and son team of saxophonist m: Jack Wright and contrabassist m: Ben Wright. In the world of improvised music, or non-idiomatic improvised music if o...

Michael Bates: Northern Spy

Did you ever get a bit envious listening to a recording and thinking the band is having way too much fun making music? I'm not saying Northern Spy stirs up jealousy, but damn the trio of bassist m: Michael Bates, saxophonist m: Michael Blake and drummer Jeremy "Bean" Clemons a...

Dre Hoceva Trio: Coding Of Eventuality

Given the title of drummer Dre Hocevar's recording, the question arises: can one classify or identify a system's disorder, i.e. entropy? The liner notes give us a hint. Laurence Donohue-Greene writes, this trio of Hocevar, pianist Bram De Looze and cellist St.Louis, "develop each improvisation compo...

Yaniv Taubenhouse Trio: Here from There

Here From There announces a major new mainstream talent, the m: Yaniv Taubenhouse, led by pianist Yaniv Taubenhouse, from the perspective of both his performance and composition. The album was recorded during Taubenhouse's stay at Fayetteville, Arkansas in the University of Arkansas pian...

Milford Graves/Bill Laswell: Space / Time - Redemption

An unlikely duo, yet-somehow-also the perfect duo, electric bassist m: Bill Laswell and multi-percussionist m: Milford Graves generate all sorts of musical fire on Space -Time: Redemption. Once again, TUM Records' lush packaging includes numerous photos, copious liner notes, an...

Yells at Eels: In Quiet Waters

It would seem that trumpeter Dennis GonzA lez could easily find a place among the better-known artists in jazz were it not for a deep commitment to making generally undefinable music and priorities that include putting his academic and literary responsibilities out front. From the time of his first...

Jaga Jazzist: Starfire

First things first: let's leave the definition of m: Jaga Jazzist music for last. Or, better, let's not even consider using labels. Let's not rush to conclusions, let's not fall in the sweet traps of music criticism where one plunges in forced by adjectives, hyperboles, comparisons, clev...

Paul Dietrich: We Always Get There

Chicago based trumpeter and composer Paul Dietrich's debut album We Always Get There is a vibrant and explorative work of modern music that inhabits the border zone between the mainstream and the Avant-Garde. The record's intricately constructed originals, with dramatic ambiences, are provocative wh...

Denny Zeitlin: Riding the Moment

The album Switched-On BachA (Columbia Records, 1968), by Walter (now Wendy) Carlos was a seminal introduction to synthesized music. Carlos used the then new MOOG Synthesizer to painstakingly construct the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Love it or hate it seemed to be the reaction, without much opi...

The Greg Foat Group: The Dancers at the End of Time

This is the fourth album by pianist/organist/composer Greg Foat and has been released both on CD and LP (this review concerns the latter format) and is unquestionably his most accomplished and satisfying to date. The stately strains of a church organ (a real one, since this album was recorded in a c...

Quiet Music Ensemble: The Mysteries Beyond Matter

The latest release from the redoubtable Farpoint Recordings is the debut recording from Cork-based experimental music group Quiet Music Ensemble (QME)--what a great group name, eh? The group consists of double bassist Dan Bodwell, cellist Ilse De Ziah, clarinetist SeA n Mac Erlaine, trombonist Roddy...

Kris Davis Infrasound: Save Your Breath

Nascent New York-based pianist, composer Kris Davis presents a musical journey that may be akin to navigating through a dense forest via snaking trails, rolling hills and dusky caves. With a first-class supporting cast , the pianist's comprehensive works emphasize her luminous imaginative powers. Se...

Hu Vibrational: The Epic Botanical Beat Suite

Uniquely atmospheric, this music evokes both the mysterious jungle as well as what it might be like to listen in space, outer space. Hu Vibrational Presents The Epic Botanical Beat Suite points to both the inner as well as outer journey. All of it exquisitely tethered by the Beat, or beats, beats th...

John Tropea: Gotcha Rhythm Right Here

Although thirty-one musicians are listed, guitarist m: John Tropea's latest recording isn't strictly a big-band album, as the sidemen perform on assorted tracks in groups whose size varies from five to twelve. Tropea is always present, of course, as is his friend and fellow composer / ar...

Muddy Waters 100: Muddy Waters 100

When a local guitarist and blues singer in Clarksdale, Mississippi named McKinley Morganfield made his first field recording at the Stovall plantation, on August 31, 1941, he had no idea where this music would take him. By the time he plugged his guitar into an amplifier on Chicago's Southside in 19...

Bob Mintzer Big Band: Get Up!

Funk and R&B are the dominant sonic strains on Get Up!--saxophonist-composer m: Bob Mintzer's twentieth big band release overall and his fifth for the MCG Jazz imprint. In October of 2014, Mintzer took to the stage for two nights at Pittsburgh's Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, armed with so...

Laszlo Gardony: Life In Real Time

Life In Real Time is somewhat unique in that it's in the mold of Laszlo Gardony's previous recordings and a departure from the norm for that pianist of note. And just how is that possible? That's easy to answer: Gardony hews to his norm by working with his longtime trio mates--bassist {{m: John Lock...

Ginger Johnson and his African Messengers: African Party

The release of the compilation album Highlife on the Move: Selected Nigerian and Ghanaian Recordings from London and Lagos 1954-66 (Soundway Records, 2015) threw light on the often-neglected role that the London scene of the fifties and sixties played in the development of Highlife and Afrobeat music, d...

Fabrizio Bosso: Duke

Italian post-bop trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso from Turin, Italy, is not yet a household name in the American musical landscape however, he is no novice to the jazz idiom either. A veteran trumpeter who has preferred the vibrant and more receptive jazz scene in Europe over the states, has during his burg...

Chad Lawson: Crossing Over and Back

Chad Lawson is a compelling musical voice that deserves wider attention. He's a masterful pianist with an extensive jazz background, but has crossed genres taking the beauty of his music into the classical world. Recently, he released The Chopin Variations, arrangements of famed composer FrA(C)dA(C)ric...

Satoko Fujii Tobira: Yamiyo Ni Karasu

Pianist m: Satoko Fujii, based now in Berlin, makes uniquely tumultuous music, intersecting a rolling and tumbling near chaos with moments of pastoral beauty and fierce, pounding grooves. Ever restless, she forms new groups filled with fearless musicians with always interesting results. S...

John Yao and His 17-Piece Instrument: Flip-Flop

Music aside, you have to love the name of this band: m: John Yao and His 17-Piece Instrument. Now there's confidence with a capital C! Yao, a New York City-based trombonist who arrived there from his native Chicago more than a decade ago, has more recently turned his hand to composing an...

Kit Downes: Tricko

Tricko pairs composer and keyboard player Kit Downes with cellist Lucy Railton on a set of Downes' compositions. It's a delightful pairing, creating distinctive tunes inspired by minimalism, mutability and a few of the mysteries of the world. Downes and Railton met when they were studying at London...

Alan Courtis and Aaron Moore: Bring Us Some Honest Food

Bring Us Some Honest Food marks an important landmark for Dancing Wayang. Since its first release, A Gold Chain Round Her Breast by Motor Ghost, in 2007, this is the label's tenth album. That total of ten records in eight years is indicative of the care and attention that is lavished on every aspect...

John Clark: The Odd Couple Quintet +1

"And now," as John Cleese used to intone on the Monty Python television series, "for something completely different." In this case, a jazz quintet (+ 1) sporting a front line of French horn and bassoon and performing, among other things, two horn concertos by Mozart. An odd coupling? At first blush...

Howard University Jazz Ensemble: HUJE 2014

Another year, another splendid album by the exemplary Howard University Jazz Ensemble from Washington, DC. Not that that should surprise anyone; Fred Irby III, who is completing his fortieth year as the band's first and only director, has ushered his students into a recording studio for the last thi...

Laura Dickinson: One for My Baby: To Frank Sinatra with Love

Paying homage to the Chairman of the Board is never quite an easy thing to do, but vocalist Laura Dickinson takes on this challenge and delivers one of the best tributes to the crooner on her astonishing debut album One for My Baby, To Frank Sinatra with Love. Influenced by the sound early on in her...