by Mark Saleski First off, I just have to say that this album, recorded at WGBH’s Fraser Performance Studio in Boston, sounds gorgeous. Many modern recordings, even in the quieter jazz realm, are tainted by the overuse of compression. Not so here. The inner detail of Winard Harper’s cymbal workRead More

by Tom Johnson Elvis Costello makes yet another shift in his career, this time to take on the persona of a jazz crooner backed by an orchestra arranged and conducted by his own bad self. Does it work? Depends on your view of Elvis: If, in your world, he’s theRead More

I do like my jazz with some funk, and Chris Greene delivers.

Frank Black is dead, but long live Black Francis as ‘Bluefinger’ brings back a little more Pixies-derived attitude.

Listening to this record before I even read Melvin Jones’ liner notes, I already knew what he meant by the title of this debut album by him. It’s an album that has many shades of jazz on display, and the constant is the pure, malleable trumpet voice of Jones. SoRead More

by Mark Saleski My favorite Tom Harrell record is actually a Jim Hall record. These Rooms was a Jim Hall Trio album featuring Tom Harrell. Really great stuff. There was a certain synergy between Harrell’s flugelhorn and Hall’s guitar. Some of that kind of thing is evident on Roman Nights.Read More

by Tom Johnson Every genre seems to get reinvented every so often. Jazz had its renewal a few years back, and now the blues seems to be burbling under again, beginning into the early 2000s with the success of the White Stripes. But the White Stripes got nuthin’ on thisRead More

Stephane Grappelli’s ‘Plays Jerome Kern’ wasn’t a rethinking of the legendary American Broadway composer’s work, so much as a deeply romantic, light jazz/classical aside.

I took a quick survey of pianist Bruce Barth’s discography, and the album titles go like this: Home: Live in Columbia Missouri, Live at Café Del Teatre, Live at The Village Vanguard, Hope Springs Eternal, Live. So when New York’s legendary Small’s jazz club asked Barth to make a liveRead More

by Tom Johnson A definitive entry in the Talking Heads’ catalog this was somehow out of print at one point for, what, nearly two full decades? I was lucky enough to stumble upon a bootleg copy of the vinyl a while back but the sound quality was pretty rough; thereRead More