Axel DA rner/Franz Hautzinger/Mazen Kerbaj/Carl Ludwig HA1/4bsch: Ariha Brass Quartet

The visual component of music has seemingly always been given short shrift by critics, and for that matter, listeners too. Except for the rare instances where a person is born with an acute synesthesia, or the ability to see musical notes as colors or shapes, perception of sound is limited to emotio... [ read more ]

Thomas AlbA|k Jakobsen's Flux: Voyager

Tranquil tidings, flowing gestures, sweeping statements, curious encounters, and triumphant displays are all incorporated into the music of Danish drummer Thomas AlbA|k Jakobsen's FLUX. For the band's second album, following Relationships (Self Produced, 2013), Jakobsen sought to highlight the group... [ read more ]

Anenon: Petrol

Anenon is Los Angeles-based saxophonist Brian Allen Simon in hybrid mode, blending jazz, classical, ambient and electronic musics. The music on Petrol was born out of a series of improvisational sessions with friend and collaborator, drummer Jon-Kyle Mohr, who overlaid live drums over Simon's saxoph... [ read more ]

Ben Monder: Amorphous Music

Ben Monder is a guitarist with a singular and influential voice. While he has received a great acclaim for his multifaceted work and unparalleled technical facility, Monder has also demonstrated remarkable breadth both as a bandleader and composer. His debut album for ECM Amorphae is a kind of a mov...

Keith Tippett: Mujician Solo IV a€' Live in Piacenza

From its opening notes, it is apparent that m: Keith Tippett's first solo recording in fifteen years is something very special indeed. Tippett has always been a player with a talent for musical pyrotechnics, cascades of notes--triplets, trills, mordants and arpeggios-colliding with might... [ read more ]

Jake Hertzog: Well Lit Shadow

A suite for solo electric guitar that takes inspiration from images of particle collisions isn't exactly your garden-variety jazz release. But, then again, Jake Hertzog isn't your garden-variety jazz guitarist. Over the course of the past decade, Hertzog has established himself as a powerful and uni... [ read more ]

Ed Cherry: Soul Tree

Like any jazz recording worth its salt, m: Ed Cherry's Soul Tree, his second release for the Posi-Tone imprint, impresses on more than one level. Cherry's interpretations of often performed jazz standards--m: Mal Waldron's "Soul Eyes," Dave Brubeck's "In Your Own Sweet Way... [ read more ]

The Great American Music Ensemble: It's All in the Game

While those of a certain age may reasonably presume that It's All in the Game refers to a hit song from 1958 by Tommy Edwards ("Many a tear has to fall, but it's all in the game . . ."), the "game" in this case is actually an acronym for conductor / arranger m: Doug Richards' Great Ameri... [ read more ]

Will Bernard: Out and About

Will Bernard has received his due for sideman work in a variety of settings, but you rarely hear anybody talk about stylistic range when it comes to his own leader dates. This is the album that could--and should--change that. Over the course of eleven originals, Bernard continually frames himself in... [ read more ]

Ingrid James: Trajectoire

Australian vocalist and lyricist Ingrid James has collaborated with French pianist Alexis Tcholakian's trio for her fifth album, Trajectoire. The collaboration works well, creating a sophisticated collection of songs with depth and beauty. Tcholakian's trio--bassist Simon Teboul and drummer Thierry... [ read more ]

Ryan Keberle and Catharsis: Ryan Keberle and Catharsis: Azul Infinito

While the blues is a distinctly American creation, formed, fueled, and furthered by the African diaspora, the United States holds no ownership on blue-streaked sounds. They exist beyond our borders, and Azul Infinito makes that case in artful fashion by simultaneously tapping into various South Amer... [ read more ]

Logan Richardson: Shift

Shift is a welcome return to the emotive stylings of Logan Richardson, the Paris-based, Kansas City-born saxophonist and composer who garnered respect as a fluent voice with his 2007 debut Cerebral Flow (Fresh Sound) and projects with peers like pianist m: Gerald Clayton in NEXT Collecti... [ read more ]

Mike Garson: David Bowie Always Chose Good Musicians

By comparison, rarely anyone has ever had as diverse career within the music business as pianist Mike Garson. A jazz pianist and a teacher, he went to become one of singer m: David Bowie's most trusted and longest working sideman. At the start of the '70s, he was touted to Bowie and The...

Samo Salamon Bassless Trio: Unity

For a long time, Slovenian guitarist and composer, m: Samo Salamon, has pursued a particular path. His signature format has become the bassless trio and he has continued to find new possibilities in this relatively rare setting. The latest incarnation of the bassless trio consists of Sala... [ read more ]

Moppa Elliott: Still, Up In The Air

The founder and bassist of m: Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Matthew "Moppa" Elliott, has kept his own solos to a minimum on MOPDtK recordings, giving the spotlight over to trumpeter m: Peter Evans, saxophonist m: Jon Irabagon and now pianist {{m: Ron Stabins... [ read more ]

Greg Abate and Phil Woods: Kindred Spirits: Live at Chan's

Alto saxophonist Greg Abate is a man who has built a career as a powerhouse reed man and a proponent of the mainstream bebop style, earning the nickname "the prince of bebop." One of the kings of the genre, is unquestionably the legendary m: Phil Woods who blazed that trail before Abate a... [ read more ]

JoA lle LA(C)andre - Urs Leimgruber - Fred Frith - Alvin Curran: Oakland/Lisboa

This multinational dream team's second album was recorded live at a venue in Lisbon, Portugal. MMM stands for Mills Music Mafia, alluding to the respective artists' tenure or residency at Mills College in Oakland, CA. As anticipated, the quartet embarks upon a course of ingenuity that would be diffi... [ read more ]

Teddy Edwards: Four Classic Albums

m: Teddy Edwards was a formidable tenor player on the '50s and '60s West Coast scene with a warm and congenial tone reflected the laid-back thoughtfulness of the West Coast scene with enough soul to indicate he was listening some m: Coleman Hawkins in the midst of the {{m: Lest... [ read more ]

Avishai Cohen: Into the Silence

Israeli-born trumpeter and prodigy Avishai Cohen was already touring with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra as a teenager. He attended Berklee College of Music, and later, placed highly in the m: Thelonious Monk jazz trumpet competition. A progressive-thinking artist, he hasn't looked ba... [ read more ]

National Jazz Ensemble: Featuring Gerry Mulligan

Any new CD whose cover proclaims "Featuring m: Gerry Mulligan" is guaranteed to turn heads, raise antennae and whip up interest. This one, on which Mulligan performs with the then-three-year-old National Jazz Ensemble, was recorded February 19, 1977, in a sold-out auditorium at the New Sc... [ read more ]

University of Northern Iowa Jazz Band One 2014-15: Local Color

In Local Color, the latest in a long series of splendid albums by the University of Northern Iowa's Jazz Band One, color is one of the primary ingredients; every number, in fact, is awash in radiant colors, from the prismatic opener, UNI alum Michael Conrad's "Gerry's Timepiece," to the chimerical c... [ read more ]

Florian Hoefner: Luminosity

A change in scenery can bring a new perspective as revealed in Florian Hoefner's Luminosity, his third release on Origin Records. Since moving to St Johns, Newfoundland in 2014 after spending years in New York City, the pianist and composer builds on previous works that highlighted a lyrical adeptne... [ read more ]

Sitting Bull: Sitting Bull

The piano and percussion duo may be two-thirds of that most ubiquitous trio formation, but it is not often heard. Among those who have tackled this duo format are former Yes members, keyboardist Patrick Moraz and drummer m: Bill Bruford--both with solid jazz credentials--who had been down... [ read more ]

Russ DeFilippis: The Sorcerer's Accomplice

Jazz guitarist and educator Russ DeFilippis from Stony Point, New York delivers his second album as leader with the appropriately titled The Sorcerer's Accomplice, a ten-piece project of smooth-styled jazz with a Brazilian flair. Why is the album title so apropos? In 2012, DeFilippis met fellow educ... [ read more ]

Michael Formaneka€(TM)s Ensemble Kolossus: The Distance

Jazz composers writing for large ensembles have often avoided the label "big band," going back to the Jazz Composer's Orchestra in the '60s, not to mention Sun Ra's Arkestra and the many Swing Era bands that called themselves orchestras. It's an understandable choice, given the unavoidable--and pote... [ read more ]

Jasper Hoiby in Conversation

Scandinavian/British jazz trio m: Phronesis have been described in Jazzwise Magazine as "one of the most exciting bands on the planet today" and by Jon Newy in the same publication as "the most exciting and imaginative piano trio since the m: Esbjorn Svensson Trio." They have...

Ken Peplowski: Enrapture

How on earth do you successfully bind the music of m: Duke Ellington, m: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, m: Fats Waller, m: Herbie Nichols, Bernard Herrmann, m: Peter Erskine, and NoA l Coward into one coherent statement? The answer is simple: You d... [ read more ]

Phronesis -- Jasper Hoiby in Conversation

Scandinavian/British jazz trio m: Phronesis have been described in Jazzwise Magazine as "one of the most exciting bands on the planet today" and by Jon Newy in the same publication as "the most exciting and imaginative piano trio since the m: Esbjorn Svensson Trio." They have...

Jon Lundbom and Big Five Chord: Make Magic Happen

The computer/internet age ushers in new ways of selling music. Record stores, flipping through bins of long playing albums--long gone. Compact discs--not selling like they used to. Digital downloads--the thing of the future? Guitarist m: Jon Lundbom has come up with the idea--influenced... [ read more ]

Ark Ovrutski: Intersection

Ukrainian bassist Ark Ovrutski arrived on American soil just over a decade ago, and he's been rather busy ever since. A nonstop go-getter from his earliest days, Ovrutski immediately made the most out of that move, steadily working his way into the ultra-competitive New York jazz scene and seeking o... [ read more ]

Colin Cannon: Intermission (Farewell)

Reading the spare (and tongue-in-cheek) liner notes of guitarist/composer Colin Cannon's Intermission (Farewell), one could easily get the idea that Cannon wrote, arranged and produced the album for a relatively small inner circle of friends, family and associates. Referring to that cohort, he write... [ read more ]