Reviews
05/16/13 Albums By Mike Shanley
For People In Sorrow
Cryptogramophone
Too often tribute albums are based on reverence that leaves the heart and soul of the honoree behind. Other times, the subject’s material gets re-contextualized to the point of absurdity. Alex Cline approached Roscoe Mitchell’s “People in Sorrow” hoping...
05/15/13 Albums By Mike Joyce
Melody Magic
Azica Records
Melody Magic may not boast as high a profile as Frank Vignola’s pairings with Les Paul or Tommy Emmanuel or David Grisman, but this collaboration with fellow guitarist Vinny Raniolo offers similar rewards. By Vignola’s reckoning, the two have shared the...
05/14/13 Albums By John Murph
Life Forum
Concord Jazz
Gerald Clayton switches up his game on this thrilling disc. He ups the conceptual ante and widens his sonic palette to include trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, saxophonists Logan Richardson and Dayna Stephens, and singers Gretchen Parlato and Sachal Vasandani...
05/13/13 Concerts By Thomas Conrad
Concert Review: Jason Moran & the Bandwagon in La Jolla
Fats Waller on their minds
05/13/13 Albums By Steve Greenlee
Venture Inward
Let’s call bunk on the claim that jazz should always find new things to say. Venture Inward , the new platter from trumpeter David Weiss and his quintet Point of Departure, is steeped in 1960s postbop—specifically that of Miles Davis—and it would be futile...
05/12/13 Albums By Thomas Conrad
Songways
The five albums that Stefano Battaglia has made for ECM since 2005 contain the strongest work released by an ECM pianist during that period. That claim will be controversial, given that pianists like Keith Jarrett, Stefano Bollani, Bobo Stenson and Craig...
05/11/13 Albums By Steve Greenlee
Long Story Short: Curated By Peter Brötzmann
Trost
The five-CD set Long Story Short is a distillation of the 2011 Music Unlimited festival in Wels, Austria, curated by angry-jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. The box set presents more than six hours of free jazz performed by 18 different configurations, some...
05/10/13 Albums By Christopher Loudon
Fandango
Shout Factory
The 1960s gave us the Beatles and the Stones, Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin. They also gave us Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Indeed, among the era’s American hitmakers, few came close to matching the popularity of the TJB (none of whom were Mexican...
05/08/13 Albums By Jeff Tamarkin
Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue
Concord Jazz
On her 50th-anniversary tribute to the Duke Ellington-Charles Mingus-Max Roach sessions that produced the original Money Jungle , drummer Terri Lyne Carrington wisely chooses not to attempt a reproduction of the earlier work but rather to approximate and...
05/08/13 Albums By Lloyd Sachs
Hagar's Song
ECM Records
When jazz historians look back on this era, one of the things they’ll highlight is the transcendent role played by two young piano greats in support of two resurgent tenor legends: Danilo Pérez in Wayne Shorter’s quartet and Jason Moran in Charles Lloyd’s...