New discs from James Brandon Lewis and Vijay Iyer merit serious attention from admirers of improvised music.
Jazz
Arts Coverage Commentary: A Conversation with Ted Gioia About New Approaches to Publishing
“I don’t work the system anymore, except as a last resort: I aim instead to bypass it. The better I have gotten at circumventing gatekeepers, the more successful my writing career has been.”
Arts Remembrance: At 40, Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays’s “As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls” Still Enthralls
Nothing that guitarist Pat Metheny had done previously hinted at this sprawling 1981 masterpiece.
Jazz CD Review: Jim Waller Big Band — “Bucket List”
This is one of the best traditional big band records you’ll hear this year, or maybe this decade.
Jazz Album Reviews: Pianists Masabumi Kikuchi and Theo Walentiny — Poetic Solo Flights
Two albums, from a late master and a newbie, are notable additions to the current wave of introspective solo piano excursions.
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.
April Short Fuses – Materia Critica
Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
Music Commentary: The Seven Ages of Jazz-Kind
With apologies to the Swan of Avon.
Music Preview: Creative Music Series Brings Live Jazz to Live Audiences
At a time most venues are doing without live music, the Creative Music Series is bucking the trend with free public concerts in outdoor locations throughout the Boston area.
Jazz Album Review: Nik Bärtsch’s “Entendre” — Zen Funk
To my ears, the pieces in Entendre are fascinating, if not particularly funky.