Playing a myriad of keyboards and synths, Richard Barbieri mixes and matches guest voices and instruments to create a dark and moody tapestry of palpable tones. The atmospheres range from a tropical “Under A Spell” with vibes, horns and various…
Month: July 2021
COOLER TONES OF THE ALTO SAX…Code Quartet: Geneology, Pat Donaher: Occasionally
Usually associated with Charlie Parker, and therefore bebop, Paul Desmond and the icy coolness, or with Ornette Coleman and thus free jazz, the alto sax his represented here with a warmer atmosphere on these two recent albums. Consisting of alto…
Robert Jurjendal: Vesi Leiab Tee-Love Finds A Way
Robert Jurjendal plays a wide range of guitars and synths, percussion and electronics along with vocalist Signe Jurjendal, cellist Anti Jurjendal and pianist Miguel Noya. The sounds are mostly of the Eno styled ambient, with percussion and Atari video games…
David Friesen & Bob Ravenscroft: Passage
Bassist David Friesen delivers concise duets with grand pianist Bob Ravenscroft for twenty five intuitive originals. Ravenscroft does some George Winston impressionism on ”Perseverance” and Bill Evans romance on “Obedience” while for the most pat you hear things like doors…
Darwin 3: Unplugged
The prog rock team of Billy Sheehan/b, Matt Bissonette/b, Greg Howe/g and producer-drummer Simon Phillips put together acoustic highlights of their previous two albums. The songs are categorized into “orchestral”, “acapella” and “Unplugged”. The former has Braveheart like sweeping moods…
Michael Waldrop: Time Frames
Playing marimba, drums, keyboard sequencing and vibes, Michael Waldrop creates a percussion discussion with Jose Rossy/perc, Marko Djordjevic/dr, Gordon Stout/mar and a sometime guest team of Alex Peshounin-Sam Shoup/b and Steve Snyder-Ivana Cojbasic/p. The sticks get tribal and pretty on…
****HISTORICAL RECORD OF THE YEAR?****Arv Garrison: Wizard of the Six String-Classic and Rare Recordings from The 1940s
As a Critic for Downbeat Magazine, every year I get a form to fill out in which to judge the “Best Of” in every category. Every year, when it comes to “Best Label of the Year”, I have to write…
THE HUMMING HAMMOND: Mike LeDonne: It’s All Your Fault
Like peanut butter and jelly, so is the Hammond B3 and shufflin’ blues. This album has B3er Mike LeDonne grooving hard with a boogie-ing quartet of Eric Alexander/ts, Peter Bernstein/g and Joe Farnsworth/dr as well as with a big band…
Aki Rissanen: Divided Horizon
Using the isolation of the COVID lockdown to increase creativity, pianist Aki Rissanen went into a musical retreat and came up with the idea of featuring a new and unique instrument, the “Omniwokr”, created by Finnish builders Jonte Knif and…
CLASSY! George Cables: Too Close For Comfort
Pianist George Cables is one of those guys, like Harold Mabern, John Hicks and Mulgrew Miller, who just always know how to keep jazz both swinging and classy. He’s always best in a trio setting, and he shines here with…