There’s a contrast here, an understandable impatience with current events placed alongside belief in MLK’s vision of the long arc of the moral universe. Neither cancels the other.
Jazz Album Review: Sarah Wilson’s “Kaleidoscope” — Unrelievedly Optimistic
On this disc, trumpeter, singer, and composer Sarah Wilson serves up music that is warm, a little funny at times, and very well played in an unassuming manner.
Jazz Album Review: John McLaughlin’s “Liberation Time” — Driven by the Spirit
To my ears, veteran guitarist John McLaughlin is both a jazz and a rock player, and more besides.
Jazz Album Review: Barry Altschul’s 3Dom Factor — “Long Tall Sunshine”
Long Tall Sunshine pulls off a delightful paradox: it combines in-your-face vigor with subtlety, probing free improvisations with appealing compositions.
Jazz Album Review: Superb Celebrations of the Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn
Vocalist Anaïs Reno and Mark Masters and his big band supply compelling homages to the brilliance of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
Jazz Album Review: Saxophonist Ivo Perelman and Pianist Matthew Shipp — Creating Potent, Laser-like Thoughts
Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp’s duets will draw in and fascinate listeners who are open to intelligent, virtuosic, and intimate improvisations, simultaneously logical and free.
Jazz Album Review: Anna Webber’s “Idiom” — Free Improvisation as Potpourri
Descriptions of Anna Webber’s music might make it seem intimidating. It is not — her compositions are stirring, amusing, and delightful, particularly in the shell games they play with variety and coherence.
Jazz Album Review: Nik Bärtsch’s “Entendre” — Zen Funk
To my ears, the pieces in Entendre are fascinating, if not particularly funky.
Jazz Album Review: “Garden of Expression” — Virtuosic Meditations
It’s easy to single out each of these musicians, but listeners will hear the three as nearly one, which is surely what this trinity intended.
Jazz Album Review: “El Arte del Bolero” — Passionate Homage to the Era of the Bolero
So Miguel Zenón, who on saxophone has the facility of a bebopper, which he uses discreetly, is here a singer as well as an instrumentalist.