It must be tough to make a name for yourself as the little brother of such a towering figure in jazz as alto sax great Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley. Nat Adderley never did quite reach the legend status that his elder sibling did, but did manage to gain acclaim as a composer, cornet player and important cog in Cannonball’s band. Nat [...]

NICK DERISO: Finding an impressive record by Lionel Hampton, known for both his harmonic and rhythmic sophistication, is easy. Finding one that delights as much as its intrigues anymore, however, is rare. His legacy, now more than ever, is secure: Born in Louisville, Ky., in 1908, Hamp would record hundreds of albums over six decades before his death at 94 [...]

NICK DERISO: This record was, Blanchard told me, his love letter to Miles Davis. In retrospect, it was the beginning of his ascension from young lion into modern standard bearer, too. Born in New Orleans, and brought up in one of the final incarnations of Art Blakey’s traveling finishing school the Jazz Messengers, Blanchard was often inappropriately compared to the [...]

by Pico The Quickies columns have been settling into a theme of late, a theme of pimping obscure jazzers, especially whack jazzers. Hey, I can do nothing but that for years on end, but then I’d be skipping over some albums worthy of salute that come the more mainstream side of music. By “mainstream,” I don’t mean I’m going to [...]

My, how time flies. It didn’t seem so long ago when Wynton Marsalis spotted this young trumpet talent at a Dallas high school in the mid-eighties. Since then, Roy Hargrove has recorded fourteen albums as a leader, and another co-led with Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker. For these efforts, he’s won two Grammies so far. Hargrove has also recorded with [...]

NICK DERISO: Featuring the classic arrangements of seminal Davis mentor Gil Evans, “Montreux” includes long-awaited live runthroughs of key selections from their collaborations — including “Boplicity” from “Birth of the Cool” as well as several cuts from “Miles Ahead,” “Porgy and Bess” and “Sketches of Spain.” On “Miles and Quincy,” we find a bright, sometimes rip-roaring backing band conducted by [...]

Last year we touched on a solid release by Steve Allee, Colours, where the seasoned Indianapolis-based pianist found delight in turning from crossover jazz to honest-to-goodness straight trio jazz. Allee must have really enjoyed making that record, because here we are less than a year later discussing another new Steve Allee Trio release, called Dragonfly. As in Colours, Allee’s rhythm [...]

To take the old-school harmonic brilliance of Duke Ellington into the realm of John Coltane — soon to establish himself as the picture of avant garde, stimulatingly free, out there in such a way as to legitimately draw comparisons with the spiritual — was, you imagine, a challenge of equal measure for both. Coltrane’s core band is joined by Ellington [...]

NICK DERISO: Brazilian legend Milton Nascimento achieved a timeless genre-blending classic here, deftly mixing a bevy of jazz greats, some pop music and these wondrous, title-worthy angelic textures from another land. A heightened realism traveled throughout the recording. Its lyrics, translated to English, were brilliant, nearly blinding lights — beacons of imagery and distraction along the lines of the genius [...]

For more than forty years, Charles Lloyd has been the small combo leader making distinctively impressionistic and soulful kind of small combo jazz. His tenor’s delicate, almost alto-like timbre is instantly recognizable from just a single note. His prolific periods of the late sixties and since the late eighties have produced consistently strong albums. Many stars have played in Lloyd’s [...]