SFJazz Collective: Live 2009
While there is no disputing the hegemony of New York City as jazz’s artistic epicenter, some of the music’s stronger enabling forces have bases far … Read More “SFJazz Collective: Live 2009”
While there is no disputing the hegemony of New York City as jazz’s artistic epicenter, some of the music’s stronger enabling forces have bases far … Read More “SFJazz Collective: Live 2009”
The legendary bassist gets back to his Rambling Boy roots at L.A.’s Disney Hall
Blue Note tributes, European masters impress at this Nils Landgren-programmed fest
Josef Woodard looks at how Ben Allison’s newest combines pop and jazz sensibilities.
Roy Hargrove thinks big (band) on latest. Critic Josef Woodard approves.
Fresh off of garnering his mantelpiece-polishing Guggenheim and MacArthur awards, alto saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón gets back down to the business of making some … Read More “Miguel Zenon: Esta Plena”
Roberta Gambarini shines at all-star L.A. show
Versatile programming (and a surprise Sco-Lo set) at the world’s oldest continuous jazz fest
Stefon Harris and his group Blackout keep their jazz muse on while exploring a contemporary groove.
“West Coast jazz” means musical daring at this L.A. fest
Music trumps poetry on his latest thematic project
A guitarist rescues the Monk songbook from predictability
Venerable old Blue Note Records, one of the last “major” jazz labels standing, has assembled in-house/road-show projects in the past, but this year’s “Blue Note … Read More “The Blue Note 7: Mosaic: A Celebration of Blue Note Records”
The Cameroon-born Bona has become one of the most expressive bassists in jazz.
Josef Woodard reviews the latest recording from Anat Cohen, the clarinetist and saxophonist orginally from Israel.
Brazilian music has been in the public ear more than usual during this past year, given the 50th birthday of bossa nova and its multiple … Read More “Randy Brecker : Randy in Brasil”
Jazz has a faithful friend and source of support in Portugal, as it does in most European countries. But Portugal’s jazz love and jazz lore … Read More “Estoril & Allgarve Jazz Festival”
When it comes to jazz legacy, that oft-used and misused l-word, the Monterey Jazz Festival has an unusually bountiful supply. That fact rang clearly in … Read More “Solo: Westward Expansion: Monterey at 50”
Carlos Santana’s guitar style has been one of those instantly identifiable sounds on the musical horizon for close to four decades. Cross-generational listeners with access … Read More “Various Artists: Viva Carlos!”
Pianist-composer Myra Melford has long managed to defy easy descriptors, working both inside and out and pushing her music into terrain with musical vocabulary both … Read More “Myra Melford, Hammer Museum, Westwood, Calif.”
A single multifaceted guitar amp is, like a great sampled grand piano sound, one of those elusive ideals in the world of music equipment. While … Read More “Pritchard Jade Dagger Amplifier”
The sharp-toned and sharpminded tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander stretches into a few different directions on his latest album but never loses his sure personal voice. … Read More “Eric Alexander: It’s All In the Game”
Saxophonist John Ellis first made his name as the sax foil in Charlie Hunter’s band, from which he has gained some fine ideas about how … Read More “John Ellis: By a Thread”
Smack dab in the middle of his latest album, Guitar Groove-a-Rama, the chameleonic blues-guitar hero Duke Robillard takes the opportunity to pay respects to an … Read More “Duke Robillard: Guitar Groove-a-Rama”
The amazing bassist was also a great big band leader. Josef Woodard reports.
Although “Simplesmente,” a svelte Bebel Gilberto remix, kicks off this electro-bubbly and hip new Brazilian compilation, the goods herein are anything but your father’s (or … Read More “Various Artists: Ziriguiboom: The Now Sound of Brazil 2”
The standard jazz-quintet paradigm, as cemented by Art Blakey’s various Jazz Messengers and the classic mid-’60s Miles Davis quintet, has long been an enduring staple … Read More “Vincent Gardner Quintet: Elbow Room”
Kip Hanrahan’s evocative and hard-to-classify albums have always occupied some dimensional netherworld, just left of jazz or any easy idiomatic address, closer to the realm … Read More “Kip Hanrahan: Pinero”
The 1950s and early 1960s recordings by Wes Montgomery are among the greatest in jazz-guitar history. But what of the mid-to-late ’60s albums that Montgomery cut for Verve and A&M that led to his greatest popular successes-and the loudest critiques from the jazz world? Josef Woodard gives us an indepth look at the commercial apex of
Montgomery’s career.
To reach the township of Piru, head east out of the megalopolis of Los Angeles. Turn left after the amusement park known as Magic Mountain … Read More “Wadada Leo Smith: Dreaming on the Outskirts”