There’s a quiet intensity about Ryan Kisor’s latest, The Dream (Criss Cross). While the CD doesn’t push many technical or stylistic envelopes, the trumpet man from Sioux City takes a creative step forward backed by a taking-care-of-business rhythm section including pianist Peter Zak, bassist John Webber and drummer Willie Jones III. Kisor plays long lines full of twists and turns on “Minor Ordeal,” using interesting altered chords and substitutions without harsh dissonance. While Booker Little inspires his harmonic sophistication, Kisor has his own sound; a gorgeous, glowing tone and vibrato that caresses the bittersweet melody of “I Should Care.” On “Deception,” a bebop romp through the changes of “Cherokee,” a cup-muted Kisor and colleagues sound relaxed even at such a fast tempo. They play out on “Panic Attack,” and right down the middle on the finger-popping “Bert’s Blues.” For the finale, Kisor pays homage to Dizzy Gillespie with the jaunty calypso “Fiesta Mojo,” featuring special appearances by tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander and percussionist Renato Thomas.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time