by Pico It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled… -Led Zeppelin What can I say, I’ve let a lot of release dates on the mainstream side go by without any mention. And so, it’s catch-up time. Three major acts, plus an act with a major cause. NoRead More

by S. Victor Aaron After forty years in the business, ECM remains one of the busiest jazz labels around, and if anything, they’ve been picking up steam lately. That might be because they continue to bring on exciting new artists while continuing their amazing ability to retain so many ofRead More

by Pico When musicians get together for jam sessions at a restaurant or a music house after the marquee gigs are done, that’s called a “late set.” It’s been a part of the NYC jazz scene at least since guys like Charlie Christian, Thelonius Monk, Kenny “Klook” Clarke, Charlie ParkerRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Oftentimes the battle for getting the recorded music of experimental and forward-thinking musicians out to the public is largely undertaken by hundred if not thousands of tiny record labels. These labels are not founded by those with the idea of making a lot of money, butRead More

by Pico Tuesday was pretty busy day for Manfred Eicher’s fabled label ECM Records, as this was a day when they are released no less than five CD’s. For this all-ECM version of Quickies, we’re going to take some fairly brief looks at three of these, the more jazz-oriented ones.Read More

December 17, 2008. That’s the last time a non-jazz record has appeared on a Quickies column. In the intervening half-year there’s been so many fresh non-jazz records that merits at least a few paragraphs, and sometimes the full fledged reviews can’t adequately cover ’em all. So guess what…it’s a QuickiesRead More

by Pico So what do these three albums getting the spotlight on this Quickies have in common? For one, they all fall on the jazz side of things (no surprise there). For another, these are all April releases. Oops, it’s already May, isn’t it? It’s still not too late toRead More

by Pico As before, this Quickies is an opportunity to highlight new offerings by some lesser-known jazz artists out there today. The thought crossed my mind to throw in a big name like Neil Young, but we kind of covered his Fork In The Road record last week in aRead More

This installment of Quickies is aimed at introducing to you, Dear Reader, some amazing jazz musicians who may not have shown up on your radar screen yet: Jake Hertzog Chromatosphere Here’s a guitarist who is a 2007 graduate of Berklee, won the Montreaux Jazz Guitar Competition the prior year, cameRead More

by Pico We’ve been long overdue for another “Quickies,” as there’s been way more new releases to talk abput than there’s time to talk (as usual). Nonetheless, the show must go on and the word has to get out. This variation has a certain theme. Well, sort of. We startRead More