Michael Ullman
Live in Paris: The Radio France Recordings 1983-1984 is an example of solid, appealing late Chet Baker, doing what he did best with standards and the occasional original.
Read MoreThe centenary of bassist/composer Charles Mingus’ birthday is days away and I am listening to the beautifully packaged and processed and richly annotated 3 lps of Mingus’s Lost Album, recorded live at Ronnie Scott’s London club in 1972.
Read MoreThis cooperative music is deliberately international in instrumentation and personnel and theme, proffering its own characteristic, and often quite beautiful, mix of sounds.
Read MoreWith their shifting textures and compositional variety, the relatively short pieces show the ways — in this case mostly gentle and lyrical — five musicians can fruitfully interact.
Read MoreOscar Peterson always seemed at his best live, which is how we find the pianist in this beautifully recorded, newly issued set.
Read MoreTo this listener, the quartet generates a drama of gradual enlightenment, as if extroversion signified some sort of illumination.
Read More“When you play with authority, then that’s what the music is about, like ooooh baby, and sing it.” — Cecil Taylor
Read MoreSoprano saxophonist Emile Parisien’s new disc is deliberately, and satisfyingly, international.
Read MoreThe rewards of these and other recordings provide ample proof that, with its shape-shifting qualities, the string quartet will continue to be a powerful asset for talented jazz composers.
Read MoreWhether playing together or apart, on this 1981 recording the two saxophonists couldn’t sound more gracefully inspired or more compatible.
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Music Commentary: A Mystery Solved on the 50th Anniversary of the Release of “Queen II”