“Every beat on the album was original,” said Herbie Hancock about his game-changing funk-jazz album Head Hunters. It’s the one aspect about that record that has stood out to me over everything else, and made Harvey Mason a drum hero in my book You May Also Like: Michael Coleman +Read More

One of the great things about jazz is that some jazz musicians can just get together in a studio and knock out tunes and resulting record can be just as enjoyable as a carefully constructed, meticulously planned affair. You May Also Like: Dave Stryker – Strykin’ Ahead (2017) Dave StrykerRead More

“Conviction” is a powerful word, it connotes purposeful, assured and determined. And those are qualities that be ascribed to Kendrick Scott’s second album, Conviction. You May Also Like: Christian Scott Confirmed His Vision for Jazz With ‘Live at Newport’ Joey DeFrancesco, with Pharoah Sanders – ‘In the Key of theRead More

Amazon.com Widgets April 6th of last year was assuredly a special night for Andrea Centazzo. He was leading a thirteen-piece orchestra through five of his compositions at NYC’s The Stone club, during a fifteen-day festival celebrating the 30th anniversary of the storied creative music label he co-founded, Ictus Records YouRead More

<<< BACKWARD (“My Waterloo”) ||| ONWARD (“Hat Too Flat”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** Back during the time that 11 Tracks Of Whack was new, I’d pop that CD out of the player after “Girlfriend” most of the time; I thought that most of this album’s filler wereRead More

Jazz vocalists don’t typically give me the same charge I get from jazz instrumentalists, but there are always a few exceptions to the rule. You May Also Like: Xander and the Peace Pirates, “Soul Sailing” (2016): One Track Mind Rich Halley and Carson Halley – The Wild (2017)

An emerging talent who has starred in Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society and a 2009 winner of ASCAP Young Jazz Composer’s Competition, trumpet player Matt Holman has put it all together for his maiden record as a leader, When Flooded. You May Also Like: The People Band – Live atRead More

Soft Machine will never exist again, but one of the best of the Canterbury bands still lives on via an alumni band.

Longtime readers of SER, if such an animal even exists, know that some of us like to indulge in noisy, nonsensical and just plain weird-assed music. Once in a while, we’ll encounter something from the margins that’s so beyond the pale it makes even hardened avantists like us do aRead More

After reveling in pre-Benny Goodman big band jazz with a cheery avant twist and unlikely pop references leading the Millennial Territory Orchestra, slide trumpet extraordinaire Steven Bernstein returns to his first major project after a seven year studio layoff. You May Also Like: Sexmob – Cultural Capital (2017) Steven Bernstein’sRead More