‘The Köln Concert’ still sounds as fresh and honest as it did when Keith Jarrett composed these songs in front of a live audience.

By Nick DeRiso One of three jazz-legend siblings, Hank Jones was perhaps as unassuming as his brother Elvin (nine years younger, famously of the John Coltrane group) was the outsized extrovert. Feathery light, then concisely powerful at the piano, Hank concluded an intellectual, often overlooked eight-decade career on Sunday whenRead More

by Pico One of the most enduring singing piano players isn’t Billy Joel or even Elton John. Mose Allison has been at it since Nat King Cole was dominating the charts and although he’s slowed down a lot lately, the eighty-two year old was recently enticed back into the studioRead More

by Nick DeRiso All apologies to Roger Waters, who’s dragging it back on the road for a series of 30th anniversary concert performances, but I was never all that into Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” Too much talking, not enough — you know — music. While working out issues in dealingRead More

by Pico If a measure of the talent of a band can be measured by the amount of meaningful side projects its members get involved with, then Umphrey’s McGee is beginning to qualify as a very talented bunch. Last year, Jake Cinninger, Kris Meyers and Joel Cummins from my favoriteRead More

This being his 21st release (including a couple of live documents and soundtracks), it’s a wonder that Nick Cave could start out strong and continue to show growth with each new release. Out in March just a month after The Assassination of Jesse James soundtrack with Warren Ellis, Cave returnsRead More

Like the best Herbie Hancock ballads, “Butterfly” has inner complexity, outer beauty, – and a little mysteriousness.

by S. Victor Aaron Not the bass player for Aerosmith, but a musician named “Tom Hamilton” with a more ambitious calling. For more than forty years, the nonpop New Music composer and performer Hamilton has treated music as a laboratory for experimentation, and a pioneer of using electronics for anarchistic,Read More

by Pico Rufus Reid has never had the flamboyant, edgy comportment of, say, Charles Mingus, but for decades now, he’s been a first-call bassist for many of the finest jazz (and even non-jazz) musicians. Making his way to the top level of bottom pluckers via stints in the Thad Jones-MelRead More

by Nick DeRiso Bassist Charles Mingus, an enlightening yet stormy presence, clearly felt he had unfinished business with some of his earlier work. So, he used “Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus” and a move to the more creatively open Impulse! label to take another pass at them. That turned intoRead More