by Nick DeRiso Cassandra Wilson, who consistently defies convention as this restless chanteuse, doesn’t disappoint with Silver Pony — issued today on Blue Note as the long-awaited part-in studio, part-live followup to her celebrated Loverly. She has the vocal phrasing, the dusky intellect, of Charlie Parker and the elastic intuition of Betty Carter. Yet, Wilson is no throwback. She writes [...]
by Nick DeRiso Even a passing fan can purchase with some confidence the touchstone jazz recordings of the last century. But what next? How to explore deeper into the legacy? SomethingElse! is here to help, with an ongoing guide to what we like to call “if/then” jazz listening … IF YOU LIKE … Charles Mingus’ The Black Saint and the [...]
by Nick DeRiso Spend enough time around rock music — or, at least, rock critics — and you’ll be convinced that any number of Seminal Works, Forgotten Gems and Timeless Standards are must-have items for your record collection. Even if they turn out to be, you know, retreads dressed up as brilliant pop redux (Gene Clark’s post-Byrds catalogue, many of [...]
by Nick DeRiso A canny mixture of an old-school swinging style with the then-new cool sound, even if its name sounds like a goof. Shorty Rogers, who’d first garnered attention as part of bands led by Woody Herman (both the first and second Herds) and then Stan Kenton, had a way of confounding expectations. Born Milton Rajonsky in 1924, Rogers [...]
by Pico Curtis Fuller, one of the greatest living trombone players of all time declared “I predict that Michael Dease will become one of the world’s great trombone masters.” And when you hear Dease’s fluid, lush style, it’s not hard to see the young phenom as the legitimate successor to Fuller. Yet, Dease, who will turn 28 later this month, [...]
by Pico Such much has been mentioned here about the late, great saxophonist Michael Brecker, but nothing about the group from which he first gained fame from. Michael, of course, wasn’t the only musically talented Brecker; brother Randy was and remains a pretty good trumpet player in the hard bop tradition. He was also around for some of the critical [...]
by Pico Even as a small child growing up in Japan, jazz pianist Hiroe Sekine loved to pick out melodies she heard, such as the Japanese folk tunes emanating from her Mom’s pedal organ. Today represents a culmination of that life long passion with the release of her debut album A-mé, which means “rain” in Japanese. Sekine chose to present [...]
by Pico We introduced the master trumpeter Weiss on this space as the leader of the talent laden New Jazz Composer’s Octet and he’s shepherded this project through five releases. The NJCO represents just a slice of the long and varied career of this Queens, NY native. Having working with heavies such as Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Jaki Byard, Jimmy [...]
By Nick DeRiso One of three jazz-legend siblings, Hank Jones was perhaps as unassuming as his brother Elvin (nine years younger, famously of the John Coltrane group) was the outsized extrovert. Feathery light, then concisely powerful at the piano, Hank concluded an intellectual, often overlooked eight-decade career on Sunday when he died at age 91. It wasn’t just because he [...]
by S. Victor Aaron Last year we spotlighted a trio of CD’s that made up the maiden releases by a new record label, the artist-run collective Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records. A year later last June, there were three more BJU records to examine. And here we are less than six months after that, and there are now four more new [...]
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