Jazz
Four recent releases illustrate what can happen when the only limits are the imagination of the composer and the passion of the performers.
Big band leader Arturo O’Farrill points out that “Santiago Brooklyn Santiago” makes a forceful argument that the embargo between Cuba and the United States should be done away with.
The Regattabar, located in the Charles Hotel, re-opened after being shuttered for three years following the Covid epidemic.
Listening to the superb “El Arte Del Bolero, Volume Two,” I feel that these are two masters who, while recalling their various ancestries, are talking to me.
These witnesses to history are no longer playing with the fire of their youth, but they exude the confidence, warmth, and sure instincts of veterans.
Trumpeter Terell Stafford never seems to be straining; he can be exuberant without sounding brassy.
September releases from Kris Davis and James Brandon Lewis are sure to be among the best jazz albums of the year.
The arrangements seem to emerge organically from the structure and feel of the compositions and harmonies, like leaves unfolding from the stem of an exotic plant.
Three re-issued albums reinforce the claim that jazz recordings hit their peak from 1956 to 1964.
Jazz Commentary: Three More Recent Composer-Driven Jazz Releases — Stretching the Boundaries of the “Conventional”
These projects are more conventionally jazzish in their sounds than the four in the companion post, but that does not make their ambitions less worthwhile or less adventurous.
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