There are some lines of business where the odds are stacked heavily against you if you decide to go into it. The restaurant biz is notorious for a high failure rate, for instance. The same could be saying about starting an independent record label; they come and go in massiveRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Chris Potter has long been one of my favorite saxophonists simply by virtue of playing in a couple of my favorite bands. As a former long-time member of The Dave Holland Quintet and the reconstituted Steely Dan, Potter made his name while in his twenties withRead More

An uber-talented young gal from Oregon with a fresh, delightful debut record that brings back to life classic American music of prior generations. That’s what I said in a nutshell about Diane Birch’s Bible Belt, but this time, the buzz is about Hailey Niswanger. Ms. Niswanger (pronounced NICE-wonger) plies herRead More

It’s a classically American record by an American who was an expatriate for half of her young life. Being the daughter of a globe trotting missionary didn’t give Diana Birch a first hand indoctrination to American culture the way most Americans get it, but she was always a quick studyRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Know any good music in Baltimore? I do. The city that has spawned or raised such diverse, quirky talents such as Cab Calloway, Frank Zappa and David Byrne is currently the home to a new one: Quartet Offensive. Formed just two years ago, Quartet Offensive playsRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Brooklyn-born Steve Kuhn has not only enjoyed a long and fruitful career as a pianist of acclaim, but an interesting one as well. He studied classical piano under Margaret Chaloff, who also educated other jazz pianist luminaries like Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett. At thirteen, heRead More

For Brazilian guitarist Guilherme Monteiro, this was his first album — but looking at his long list of accomplishments tells you already that there’s nothing rookie about it. Having studied at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance and plied his trade in NYC since 2000, Monteiro has worked withRead More

by S. Victor Aaron The highly versatile drummer Matt Wilson has made a name as a leader of bands that straddled the fence between post-bop and avant garde with other music forms tossed in for grins ever since his headliner debut As Wave Follows Wave, which featured tenor sax veteranRead More

by Pico Ever had a song that you enjoyed listening to when it first came out, then moved on and forgot about it only to have some event trigger the memory of that song many years later? Such was the case for me with a thirty year old deep cutRead 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