Jazz

Television/Music Review: Next at the Kennedy Center — A Joni Mitchell Songbook, on PBS

November 13, 2022
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I put Joni Mitchell on a short list of the most remarkable pop music artists of the ’60s and early ’70s. Longevity of excellence isn’t the point here, just peak incandescence.

Jazz Album Review: Pianist Jason Yeager’s “Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite” — So It Goes

November 10, 2022
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The advantage to listening to the recorded Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite is that on disc pianist Jason Yeager writes beautifully for septet: the textures he evokes in his arrangements are curiously varied and invariably moving.

Jazz Album Review: The Vince Guaraldi Trio — “Peanuts” and Beyond

November 9, 2022
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Vince Guaraldi isn’t the heaviest of jazz pianists: he played at a time when McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans were omnipresent. But his tunes, his gently humanist approach to music, meant that he reached listeners that others couldn’t or didn’t.

Jazz Album Review: Newvelle Records’ Renewal Collection — A Beautifully Compact Clarity

October 30, 2022
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This collection, Newvelle Records’ first series release in two years, features original compositions by Elan Mehler, Michael Blake, Dave Liebman, and Nadje Noordhuis.

Jazz Album Review: Marco Pignataro’s Superb “Chant For Our Planet”

October 19, 2022
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Chant For Our Planet is a great recording full of exciting ensemble playing, with lots of tasty solos and, if you want to listen in that way, an important theme that expresses deep concern for the state of our environment.

Jazz Album Review: “That’s What Happened, 1982-1985” — Miles Davis Makes up for Lost Time

October 4, 2022
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This three-disc set provides a fascinating look behind the curtain at one of the great bandleaders in jazz history putting together his groups, seeing what they can do from multiple angles, and building a new musical concept from scratch.

Jazz Album Review: Keith Jarrett’s “Bordeaux Concert” — A Varied Masterpiece

September 28, 2022
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Given Keith Jarrett’s current disability, this new ECM recording is an unexpected gift to his fans.

Jazz Preview: The Scene Lives! — Local Jazz in the Months to Come

September 27, 2022
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Get out there and hear some live music. It’s the best gift you can give to your ears.

Jazz Preview: Aardvark at 50 Sparks a Jazz Scene Sputtering Back to Life in Eastern Massachusetts

September 26, 2022
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The pandemic clouds over the Boston / Cambridge jazz scene are breaking up – not completely by any means – but at last you have a broad menu of live music here to pull you away from your TV bingeing.

Arts Remembrance: Pharoah Sanders, A Primordial Saxophone Deity, (1940-2022)

September 25, 2022
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Sometimes Pharoah Sanders came back and played like a primordial saxophone deity, cutting into the rhythm section like an act of penetration.

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