Celebrating a half century of modern contemporary jazz, Jay Beckenstein’s Spyro Gyra releases a two disc retrospective that also includes a handful of previously unreleased tunes. Of the latter, the upbeat “50/50” has the team of Beckenstein with Julio Fernandez/g,…
Author: George W. Harris
Alex McLaughlin: A Brand New State
Bassist Alex McLaughlin brings all stars Jeremy Pelt/tp, Jeremy Siskind/p and Tina Raymond/dr together for a collection of post bopping originals. McLaughlin sets the pace by introducing many of the tunes, like the EP-ish “Desert Chapel” that has Pelt in…
Peter DiCarlo: The Other Side
Clear toned alto saxist Peter DiCarlo mixes sounds and styles on this alluring session with Uraz Kivaner/p, Ozan Musluglu/b and Ferit Odman/dr. The NYC born, Turkish-based saxist brings sounds from NYC and Anatola with ease, boasting a strong sound from…
VINYL REVIVAL…Joe Henderson: Power To The People
Craft Recordings’ latest vinyl reissue comes from a fertile period for tenor saxist Joe Henderson. His career is divided between his early Blue Note years with Horace Silver and a leader with usually Kenny Dorham, and he closed out with…
THE ENVIRONMENT AS MUSIC…Kamala Sankaram: Crescent
While there are a surfeit of topics mentioned in music, heat is not usually in the top five. Kamala Sankaram decides to focus on various effects on the climate change by melding together a wide range of instruments including her…
Bevort 3: Northbound
Scandinavian tenor saxist Pernille Bevort brings a rich toned sound to her trio of Morten Ankarfeldt/b and Espen Laub von Lillienskjold/dr through this album of original compositions. The spacious trio works well with Ankarfeldt, both flexible and relaxed as on…
Anyone: Miracles In The Nothingness
Riz Story plays everything from soup to nuts on this double disc release, and he plays it well on this ambitious collection of originals. The first disc includes some thunderous metal rock ans slinging gutrars as on “Dawning of the…
David Cross Band: Ice Blue-Silver Sky
Best known for his work with King Crimson over 50 years ago, violinist David Cross shows he’s moved on with his career with a hard rocking team of Jinian Wilde/g-voc-fl, Mick Paul/b, Steve Roberts/dr and guest David Jackson/sax. Cross and…
Scott Henderson: Karnevell!
This recent album by fusion guitarist Scott Henderson shows why he always packs the house of the Baked Potato when he regularly comes to town. He’s in a power trio with Romain LaBaye/b and Archibald Ligonniere/dr, mixing up highly energized…
Martin Budde: Back Burner
Guitarist Martin Budde proves the adage that the best way to create your own sound is to write your own material. He does both well on this trip album with Ben Feldman/b and Xavier Lecouturier/dr, with the sole cover being…