The Penguin Guide to Jazz On CD (Fourth Ed., Cook and Morton) opined back in the 90s that the Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko is an artist first and foremost and a musician second, asserting that “he is a man whose imagination is fired as much by words…as by music.” YouRead More

When Stan Killian came out with Unified a couple of years back, it didn’t knock me back in one certain way, it knocked me back in many ways. Killian brought a stout but sensitive tenor saxophone to compositions he crafted with canny detail, but also pleasing to the ear. YouRead More

Last week Boz Scaggs issued his first album since 2008’s Speak Low, another covers-dominant record, but as the name makes clear, Memphis is not a jazz crooner record like his prior two, but rather, a soul crooner record. You May Also Like: Boz Scaggs – Out Of The Blues (2018)Read More

A longtime member of both the Mingus Big Band and the Roy Haynes Quartet, saxophonist Jaleel Shaw had first gotten my attention as a leader with 2008’s Optimism and his ASCAP award winning song “Flipside.” You May Also Like: Jaimeo Brown Transcendence – Work Songs (2016) Ernesto Cervini’s Turboprop –Read More

King Crimson, of all things, was the ensemble that first demonstrated (to the wider public, at least) the greater possibilities introduced by a double trio. And now, a Frenchman and an American extend this thrilling concept into jazz. You May Also Like: Fred Hersch – Sarabande (1987, 2016 reissue) IllegalRead More

An ambitious project for a first timer, multi-reedist, composer and bandleader Joshua Kwassman made Songs Of The Brother Spirit from a set of intricately scored music based on some reflections on his young life You May Also Like: Mabel Greer’s Toyshop, “Big Brother, Little Brother” (2016): One Track Mind SpiritRead More