Go ahead-tell me you expected a solo piano album from the founding member of George Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic. And tell me it was going to have jazz standards like Mingus’ “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” and Coltrane’s “Alabama” as well as Joe…
Month: May 2014
Mike Longo: Step On It
Here’s a classy trio production by a collection of veterans. Pianist Mike Longo, long associated as Dizzy Gillespie’s sideman, joins together again with Bob Cranshaw, alumnus of Sonny Rollins, and drummer Lewis Nash, who’s hit the skins for EVERYONE. Their…
BLUE NOTES 75th ANNIVERSARY! Miles Davis-Take Off: The Complete Blue Note Albums
If diamonds are the traditional gift for a 75th anniversary, Blue Note is going to be shelling out some jewels this year, as they are re-issuing some of their earliest (and BEST) sessions in cool little 2-3 cd sets. For…
International Voices…Jaclyn Guillou: The Lover’s Walk, Susan Clynes: Life Is…
Here are a couple of vocalists that are working on creating new sounds Canadian vocalist Jaclyn Guillou delivers a seven song mini-lp which melds modern indie folk with bohemian jazz. The trio of Bram Weijters/p, Piet Verbist/b and Toon Van…
Tom Guarna: Rush
Guitarist Tom Guarna leads an impressively swinging team of Joel Frahm/ts-ss, Danny Grissett/key, Orlando Le Fleming/b and Johnathan Blake/dr through a tasty collection of originals. Guarna’s guitar work is on display on the rock steady “Shambleau” and floats majestically on…
Matt Slocum: Black Elk’s Dream
Drummer Matt Slocum uses his working trio of Gerald Clayton/p and Massimo Biolcati/b as a foundation for a pair of tenor saxes on his most recent release. Except for Pat Metheny’s “Is This America?” (which seems to be a universal…
Machine Mass featuring Dave Liebman: Inti
If you miss the sounds and visions of Weather Report, you’re going to have a field day with this release by Tony Bianco/dr, Michel Delville/g and Dave Liebman/sax-fl. Exciting electronic mixed with grooving yet complex grooves are in abundance as…
CLASSICAL? JAZZ? CLASSICAL/JAZZ? Michael Hersch: Images From a Closed Ward, Triade: Visits, Nils Bultmann: Troubadour Blue, Free Strings: Orchestrology
Where does the line get crossed between classical and jazz? Is the instrumentation? Amount of soloing? Presence or absence of syncopation or the blues? Here are four releases that try to answer this dilemma. Michael Hersch’s thirteen part composition Images…
Kevin Connor: Swingtet
Kevin Connor takes Gypsy Jazz to a different continent on this release. Not only playing guitar as he leads a team of Craig Flory/cl, Jeff Norwood/b and Joseph Mascorella/dr, he adds latin percussionist Pedro Vargas and himself includes the Tres…
ROOTS & REGGAE…Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars: Libation, Joe Driscoll & Sekou Kouyate: Faya
Since Africa is considered Ground Zero for most of the sounds of jazz, let’s check out what the Mother Country is sounding like. Here are a couple recent releases: Singer and bandleader Reuben Koroma mixes vintage West African lilt with…