Owen Cordle
Owen’s Contributions
04/12/13 Albums
Touching
Eric Alexander
Eric Alexander, on the scene since the early 1990s, is from the masculine school of tenor saxophone rhapsody. Throughout Touching , an album of ballads, he projects melodic conviction, deep feeling and mature expression. There is a blues and gospel influence...
02/22/13 Albums
Momentum
Bill Evans
This two-CD set is a considerable emotional distance from the definitive and introspective Bill Evans Trio heard on the revered Sunday at the Village Vanguard from 1961. Recorded 11 years later at a concert in Groningen, the Netherlands, Momentum proceeds...
01/29/13 Albums
'Round Midnight
Harry Allen & Scott Hamilton
“My Melancholy Baby” opens this two-tenor session in an easygoing groove with laidback, swinging saxophone solos reminiscent of Zoot Sims and Al Cohn. This is the third recorded meeting of Harry Allen and Scott Hamilton, and it’s a characteristically happy...
10/23/12 Albums
Big Fun(k) Live
Don Braden and Karl Latham
Big Fun(k) is a synchronized rhythm machine. Not that it sounds mechanical; rather, each player primarily emphasizes rhythm, and all the parts interconnect—drum backbeats, bass grooves, keyboard riffs and colors and (mostly) pentatonic tenor saxophone figures...
10/03/12 Albums
Eleven
Tommy Igoe and the Birdland Big Band
The Birdland Big Band is bold and brash. “We play loud and fast and we don’t dwell on the past,” leader and drummer Tommy Igoe says in the liner notes for this debut album. Igoe has rhythm in his blood. His father, Sonny Igoe, played drums in the late swing...
07/10/12 Albums
The Creep
Ted Nash
The Creep is saxophonist Ted Nash’s foray into free jazz. The instrumentation is the same as Ornette Coleman’s groundbreaking quartet of 1959: alto, trumpet (Ron Horton), bass (Paul Sikivie) and drums (Ulysses Owens Jr.). But, as you would expect, the result...
03/18/12 Albums
To My Surprise
Mike Longo Trio + 2
You get the feeling in listening to Mike Longo that the pianist is always in complete control of his performances: no errant phrases, no unintended rhythms or ill-timed placement of notes, no treading water in his choruses. His playing aligns with the swinging...
02/21/12 Albums
Keep the Faith
Roger Humphries
Pittsburgh drummer Roger Humphries is perhaps best known for his three-year stint with the Horace Silver Quintet in the mid-’60s, during which the group recorded the Blue Note albums Song for My Father , The Cape Verdean Blues and The Jody Grind . Appropriately...
02/16/12 Albums
Con Brio!
Ali Ryerson
Ali Ryerson’s flute playing, Pete Levin’s arrangements and noted sidemen combine to make this album artistically satisfying as well as commercially viable. The ensemble sound is contemporary, the recording quality reminiscent of CTI label productions of...
01/05/12 Albums
Wonderful!
Deep Blue Organ Trio
In my well-worn copy of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz , Stevie Wonder is mentioned 42 times—more than Hoagy Carmichael, Harold Arlen or Cole Porter. It was inevitable that jazz musicians would discover Wonder. For the generation that came...
12/07/11 Albums
The Dawn of Light
Tineke Postma
Dutch alto and soprano saxophonist Tineke Postma’s playing is supple and nuanced, to the point where her tone can suggest Lee Konitz. Sometimes she flits airily from note to note and sometimes she fidgets with phrases and releases flurries of notes or tonal...
11/28/11 Albums
The Jazz Ballad Song Book
Randy Brecker with DR Big Band
This is a lush, cinematic affair with trumpet soloist Brecker backed by the 19-piece Danish Radio Big Band and the Danish National Chamber Orchestra, with Michael Bojesen conducting. The charts—by band members Gerard Presencer, Vincent Nilsson and Peter...
11/12/11 Albums
Hues of a Different Blue
Rufus Reid & Out Front
Out Front, bassist Rufus Reid’s trio with pianist Steve Allee and drummer Duduka Da Fonseca, is the backbone of this session, with various guests appearing on half the tracks. Among those guests are Brazilian guitarist and vocalist Toninho Horta, alto saxophonist...
10/08/11 Albums
Adventures in New Orleans Jazz, Part 1
Dr. Michael White
Here we find clarinetist Dr. Michael White blending traditional New Orleans jazz with, as he states in his liner notes, “influences and songs from diverse sources, like Africa, the Caribbean and popular music from the 1960s and ’70s.” Since Africa and the...
08/25/11 Albums
Jim Snidero Interface
As the composer of all the tunes on Interface , alto saxophonist Jim Snidero sees the album as a transition away from bebop and hard bop, he tells liner-note writer Ted Panken. There are certain “inside” ideas and certain “outside” ideas beyond straight...
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