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Entries from August 2013

Roberto Magris: Sam Reed Meets Roberto Magris: Ready for Reed

Italian pianist Roberto Magris has become the hard bop keeper-of-the- flame with recent J-Mood releases including Mating Call (2010), Morgan Rewind: A Tribute to Lee Morgan Vol. 1 (2012) and One Night in With Hope and More…Vol. 1 (2012), volume designations making clear there is more to come. On Sam Reed Meets Roberto Magris: Ready For Reed, Magris reintroduces Philadelphia saxophonist m: Sam Reed , who, after a lifetime in music, took some time off but was ultimately rediscovered…

Date: Aug 31st, 2013 · No Comments · Categories: Jazz CD Reviews

FivePlay Jazz Quintet: Five And More

If the jazz world has room for two Avishai Cohens, and it can deal with the confusion of two different guys named Bill Evans that played with m: Miles Davis , it can certainly stand to have two bands called Five Play. The one on the East Coast is a breakout band extracted from the all-female Diva Jazz Orchestra; that’s not the one under discussion here.

Date: Aug 31st, 2013 · No Comments · Categories: Jazz CD Reviews

Tedeschi Trucks Band: Made Up Mind

In so many ways, Tedeschi Trucks Band has bucked the odds: a band, on paper, doomed to fail and yet, here it is with its second studio recording, after the 2011 debut, Revelator and 2012 live album, Everybody’s Talkin’ (both, Sony Masterworks). In these days of escalating touring costs, the idea of an eleven-piece rock/soul/blues band being not just viable but successful would seem impossible. Then there’s the decades-old unwritten rule: never date–or, worse, marry–one of your band mates…

Date: Aug 31st, 2013 · No Comments · Categories: Jazz CD Reviews

Alexis Cuadrado: A Lorca Soundscape

When times are tough, injustice is in the air, and something needs to be said, jazz always finds a way to do the talking. In times past, it was m: Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” at Cafe Society, drummer m: Max Roach and vocalist m: Abbey Lincoln pouring their hearts out on We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960), bassist m: Charles Mingus railing against injustice with soul stirring epics, and bassist m: Charlie Haden sermonizing with his Liberation Music Orchestra; today, it’s bassist Alexis Cuadrado loking through a Lorca lens of his own creation…

Date: Aug 30th, 2013 · No Comments · Categories: Jazz CD Reviews

Terje Rypdal: Melodic Warrior

Some albums are worth the wait, even if that wait is a full decade. The lion’s share of guitarist Terje Rypdal’s Melodic Warrior is devoted to the nine-movement title suite, a 2003 recording with the Bruckner Orchester Linz and, most importantly, the Hilliard Ensemble, the vocal ensemble that leapt to greater fame with Officium (ECM, 1993), the first of three recordings with Rypdal’s fellow countryman, Norwegian saxophonist m: Jan Garbarek . The four-movement “And the Sky was Coloured with Waterfalls and Angels,” from a 2009 performance with the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra at Poland’s renowned Jazztopad Festival, rounds out the record, a series of tone poem studies in contrast…

Date: Aug 30th, 2013 · No Comments · Categories: Jazz CD Reviews

Bystrov/Bledsoe/Lapin: Triologue

American flautist and educator Helen Bledsoe resides in Cologne, Germany, and is a prominent improviser on the global circuit. She aligns with Russians, pianist m: Alexey Lapin and clarinetist Vlady Bystrov, for a soundscape that defies stringent categorizations but touches on avant-Chamber, free-jazz, and is embedded in dense montages, as they explore numerous possibilities and outcomes. Recorded in St.

Date: Aug 30th, 2013 · No Comments · Categories: Jazz CD Reviews

Agachiko: Agachiko: Yes!

Agachiko is a band led by Boston-based vocalist Gabrielle Agachiko, bringing together an impressive array of musicians that includes saxophonist m: Russ Gershon of the m: Either/Orchestra , and m: Ken Field of the m: Revolutionary Snake Ensemble , both distilling their amply-endowed playing down to a bare essence where all that remains is the music to support an exceptional voice and vision. Largely an acoustic ensemble, Agachiko has a malleable ability to accomplish a variety of performance ends, sounding minimal and elegant, bluesy and brazen, or lavish and sated…

Date: Aug 30th, 2013 · No Comments · Categories: Jazz CD Reviews