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…
Author: George W. Harris
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…
Dena Taylor: The Nearness of You
Here’s a vocalist with an old soul of a voice. Dena Taylor teams up with David Chao/key, Evan Arredondo/b, Ernie Durawa/snares and Rick McRae/g for a collection of jazz standards. She’s got a wide vibrato as demonstrated on “When October…
Buddy Tate: The Texas Tenor
Besides the obviously aesthetic value of the music, what you must appreciate about these two cds by Buddy Tate was when he made these sessions back in 1975, absolutely NO ONE was playing acoustic mainstream jazz. Miles, Herbie, Wayne, Chick,…
Joshua Redman: Trios Live
Very few saxophonists dare into the territory of the trio format. Redman has done it before, and quite successfully, in various formats, but this is his first in concert one. The most important qualities a saxist has to have to…
South American Soul…Les Sabler: Jobim Tribute, Ruben Blades: Tangos
What would jazz be without South America? My head shakes at the thought! Here are albums dedicated to Brazil and Argentina, and the rhythms will transport your soul as close to heaven as humanly possible. Les Sabler sings in Portuguese…
Larry Coryell, Joel Harrison, Eric Reed, Sheila Jordan, etc: The Beatles-A Jazz Tribute
It was 50 years ago today… Celebrating the songwriting skills of The Four, High Note Records got together some of the best sessions from their files and compiled them together here in one disc. It works! Lennon, McCartney and Harrison…
Lou Reed: Transformer & Live at Montreux
Eagle Vision continues its fascinating series of “Classic Album” documentaries. This one features the surprise hit album by ex-Velvet Underground co-leader Lou Reed who hit the airwaves with the genre-bending song “Walk on the Wild Side” (which has NOTHING to…