‘Mama Rosa,’ named after Brian Blade’s grandmother, is a thematic album built around family, faith and early life events, as well as people he’s come to love along the way.

by Pico The real revolutionaries in music never seem to run out of ideas. That can certainly be said of one of the most…if not the most singular voice in improvised music today, guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil. When we first visited his work on this site, it was about a single,Read More

In June of last year Steve Lukather folded in Toto’s tent, declaring that “If there isn’t Paich or at least one Porcaro how can we even call it Toto?” Thirty years of recording, touring, enduring tragedy (drummer Jeff Porcaro’s death in 1992) and a revolving door of band members wereRead More

Last fall MMW kicked off the first part of their Radiolarians trilogy with Radiolarians I. Earlier this month, Part 2 came out. As with Part 1, Radiolarians II has many of the threesome’s astonishing range, sharp musicianship and unpredictability on display; it’s atypical nature makes it a typical MMW album,Read More

by Pico So what do these three albums getting the spotlight on this Quickies have in common? For one, they all fall on the jazz side of things (no surprise there). For another, these are all April releases. Oops, it’s already May, isn’t it? It’s still not too late toRead More

by Tom Johnson Two words: “yawn” and “sigh.” Could there be any more plot holes in this story? Of course, I can’t really relate the story in order to display those holes so as not to destroy what little surprise this movie has in store. In short, I saw itRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Using large ensembles as vehicles for improvised music is hardly a new proposition, but can be one of the riskiest ones. After all, the more musicians involved, the more likelihood that one or more them won’t be on the same page and thus the greater potentialRead More

“The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album” remains, for me, one of the three or four most engrossing vocal jazz recordings — along with Sinatra’s Jobim collaboration, Ella performing with Satchmo and Nat “King” Cole’s “After Midnight.” But what made the initial Bennett/Evans project, and its follow up — 1976’s “Together Again”Read More

We’re not even four months into 2009 and already we’re here for the third time since February celebrating a new Chick Corea release. In February, it was piano/piano face-off with Hiromi called Duet, in March it was the live document of Return To Forever’s triumphant return Returns, and today it’sRead More

by Pico As before, this Quickies is an opportunity to highlight new offerings by some lesser-known jazz artists out there today. The thought crossed my mind to throw in a big name like Neil Young, but we kind of covered his Fork In The Road record last week in aRead More