Jane Ira Bloom responded to her pandemic isolation with a CD of duets with bassist Mark Helias and a CD of duets with drummer Allison Miller. These two sessions are unique projects in her discography and beautiful testaments to her ingenuity.
Jazz Performance Review: Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner at Home
To hear this performance properly. you must do a bit more work than you might do ordinarily . . . but great art deserves such work.
Jazz Album Review: Miguel Zenón’s Law Years Band & Christian McBride’s New Jawn Band
Two pianoless quartets + two restless leaders = some of the best music of the last few years.
Music Profile: Violinist, Teacher, Composer, and Arranger Mimi Rabson — Making a Life in Art
The life of a working musician is not a second-class life, and Mimi Rabson’s is Exhibit A: “I try to get past the limits of the definitions and get to the joy.”
Jazz Appreciation/Album Review — Carla Bley, 84 and Counting
Carla Bley’s last three CDs are not a casual sequence, and hearing all of them together, as I did recently, provides a refreshing reminder of her greatness.
Jazz Album Review: “The Prospector” — A Saxophone-Bass-Drums Combination to Treasure
Nothing detracts from the essentials here – three fine players in creative conversation.
Arts Commentary: Meditations on Separation
This is what I feel can add: the perspective of a native-born son of the Rochester metro; and a view from the bridge through jazz-colored glasses.
Jazz Preview and Appreciation: Cécile McLorin Salvant Is Coming to Jordan Hall
Cécile McLorin Salvant understands that she is heroic.
Jazz Review and Perspective: Stan Getz (and Everyone Else) in 1961 – “Getz at the Gate”
Saxophonist Stan Getz knew whom to listen to and whom to borrow from, and the repertoire for the 1961 Village Gate gig was particularly satisfying.
Jazz Review and Appreciation: The Music Never Stops – Betty Carter Live (Again)
A landmark concert from 1992 is a chance to rediscover Betty Carter’s greatness, to appreciate again how this artist was special to the very essence of her soul.