by S. Victor Aaron The Mats/Morgan Band is a Swedish experimental/progressive rock group that is very closely tied to Frank Zappa. Led by two Swedish child prodigies Mats Oberg (keyboards, harmonica, vocals) and Morgan Agren (drums, programming, keyboards, voice), Zappa was so impressed with the two lads in the lateRead More

by S. Victor Aaron The nattily-dressed alto-sax player from the Netherlands, Benjamin Herman, released Hypochristmastreefuzz in 2008, following up on his 2001 live album with the great Dutch avant garde composer Misha Mingelberg with a studio album of Mingelberg tunes. These sessions are released again in 2010, but supplemented withRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Last year’s Colorfield was Joe Morris’ convincing debut for ESP-Disk. This year’s follow-up follows the same strategy of going without a bass (an instrument that he, ironically, is very proficient at), but instead of piano this time, there’s a cello (by Junko Fujiwara Simons) and violinRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Gebhard Weber is the German sax and bass clarinet player we introduced here last spring when reviewing the new album by the combo he co-leads with trombonist Steve Swell, The Ullmann|Swell 4. Ullman has other projects going, though and the Conference Call whack jazz supergroup heRead More

by S. Victor Aaron A record that truly lives up to its title, composer, arranger and horn player Rafi Malkiel creates a stew of orchestral klezmer jazz, Latin jazz, classical, and European folk music that is themed around H2O. Throughout every cut, water can be heard as a percussion instrument,Read More

by S. Victor Aaron Pianist and composer Ryan Cohan follows up his highly acclaimed One Sky (2007) with another slate of mostly originals, Another Look. Though Cohan is an exceptional composer (Ramsey Lewis has recorded many of his tunes), Cohan sought to make his latest record more performance-oriented. He supplementsRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Ideal Bread is a Steve Lacy tribute band, at least a tribute band in that they play the songs of the late, great soprano saxophonist and composer of the free jazz world. But this four-piece band, which includes baritone saxophonist Josh Stinton, Lacy’s copyist and studentRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Around the same time William Parker released the culmination of an epic Curtis Mayfield project that spanned live performances over seven years, Parker quietly released a decidedly more personal and discreet affair, Uncle Joe’s Spirit House. Dedicated to his 92-year-old uncle Joe and his wife ofRead More

by S. Victor Aaron This is a compilation of some highlight tracks from Mike Marshall’s albums released under Adventure Music, a label he co-founded in the late 1990s. Going agaist the grain, the track sequence goes in reverse chronological order, which means two cuts from last year’s Mike Marshall’s BigRead More

Beatles drummer Ringo Starr has taken his share of knocks over the years. But we’d like to give the former Richard Starkey his due.