Steve Elman
If you are not familiar with Wadada Leo Smith as an artist or as a thinker, you could start with The Chicago Symphonies and know that you are engaging with some of his finest work.
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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.
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I spoke with Jane Ira Bloom on September 21, 2021 via Zoom. This transcript has been edited for space and ellipses have been omitted for readability. Some paraphrases and details are added for clarity.
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Comes Love was Sheila Jordan’s first full recording session as a leader, and it automatically becomes a collector’s item for those who love the legendary jazz singer’s work.
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To hear this performance properly. you must do a bit more work than you might do ordinarily . . . but great art deserves such work.
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Two pianoless quartets + two restless leaders = some of the best music of the last few years.
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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.”
Read MoreJazz Review/Interview: Duncan Heining Revises His Landmark Biography of Jazz Composer George Russell
If you do not know George Russell, this book will bring you closer to one of the geniuses of American music. Read More
Here is a personal selection of recordings in the saxophone trio format. These linear collaborations have been part of the jazz scene for at least seventy years now. The results are almost always illuminating and exhilarating, and a review of them offers a miniature history of saxophone styles.
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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.
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