Jazz
At New Hampshire’s just-christened Nashua Center for the Arts, 68-year-old jazz guitarist Pat Metheny shared a wily sidelong glance at his own broad compositional and improvisational history.
As usual with Craft Recordings reissues, these lps are impeccably produced: the silence of the recording before the music starts is almost startling, but it’s the clear sound of what follows that is most impressive.
Fans of Postmodern Jukebox and the swing revival will enjoy this album, as will any jazz fan who appreciates taut small-group arrangements and terse, focused solos.
A rare Black female instrumentalist band leader, whose improvisations on the harp were the equal of any horn, Dorothy Ashby deserves a respected place in jazz historiography.
The music of the Duke Robillard Band may go back a long way, but there was nothing retro about the bittersweet, funky, lowdown sounds that rocked Jimmy’s.
Two new releases, led respectively by a saxophonist and a bassist, add to the growing mystique of trios in contemporary jazz.
The saxman and his usual band (including vocalist Patrice Quinn instead of the billed Ami Taf Ra) easily adapted to the 200-seat venue, barely modulating their visceral delivery while also highlighting their softer dynamics and a personal rapport.
These superb recordings provide ample proof that Oscar Hernández is at the pinnacle of his career as the leader of two divergent musical aggregations.
Terri Lyne Carrington, on her home turf (she’s a native Bostonian and holds several positions at Berklee, including being founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice), augmented her six-piece band with three guests.
Jazz Album Review/Commentary: “Don Quixote’s Adventures in the World of Jazz” — Is Jazz Intrinsically Quixotic?
It’s hard to think of music that is more foolishly impractical than jazz, even with its pursuit of lofty ideals.
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