Jazz
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.
The album seems to me to be about spotlighting the ensemble’s sound rather than the virtuoso displays of its leader.
This collector is happy to have Luis Russell: At the Swing Cats Ball with all its faults.
Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness has scholarly value but, given its diminution of human agency, it will not significantly impact real life public conversations about ending white privilege and dealing with the complexities of cultural appropriation.
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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