by Pico & Nick DeRiso Over at Something Else Reviews, we’re in a celebratory mood tonight as our team has finally made the Big Show. So for now, only one kind of music will do for us… You May Also Like: No related posts.

by Pico I was going to start off this year’s version of the Fusion Jazz list by explaining what exactly we are calling “fusion jazz,” until I recalled that I already attempted to define it last year. And looking back, it seems so damned convoluted. So disregard that: if it’sRead More

by S. Victor Aaron 2009 has had its share of the blues but there were plenty of blues practitioners making the best of the hard times, as we saw a slew of fine releases by them last year. There were seven of those that really stood out to me, aboveRead More

by Pico It’s the middle of January, which can only mean we’re about a month late on those year-end lists. Oooops. This past year, I’ve listened to perhaps a little less of the rock, pop and r&b records than in 2008, but the selections for my favorites were easier toRead More

by S. Victor Aaron In 2001, the avant garde jazz leading light Henry Threadgill had just recorded two albums he wanted released but couldn’t find a record company willing to do it. Quite a turnaround in the attitudes of the music business toward creative modern music, where Threadgill’s prior threeRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Eric Alexander is a tenor sax specialist who comes from the same generation of reed players as Joshua Redman, who he finished second to in 1991 in that career-defining Thelonious Monk Institute sax competition, when Alexander was in early 20’s. Since then, he has been extremelyRead More

by S. Victor Aaron This article makes it twenty-three albums covered in the span of eight days, which put a nice dent in my backlog, and there’s just a couple more to go before turning our attention to the year 2009 in music. The batch of records covered here drawsRead More

If you look at the list of past winners and finalists of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competitions, it’s quite impressive: Aaron Parks, Marcus Strickland, John Ellis, Sam Yahel and Miles Okazaki, just to name a few. In 2008, the winner was an alto and tenor saxophonist from the PhilippinesRead More

For this installment of the 2009 roundups, we lasso those stray cd’s of jazz that’s really “out there.” Hmmm, I think there’s a term for that kind of music. Despite hard times—and it’s really hard for those musicians who choose to play music entirely for art’s sake as these guysRead More

by Pico Before diving deeper into the stacks o’ jazz cd’s, I’d like to turn our attention toward a few records of the rock, pop & blues sides that I managed to sample over the last few months. With one exception, these are all by long-established stalwarts, falling right inRead More