A Mirror to Machaut isn’t Samuel Blaser doing a quick follow-up to As The Sea issued a mere five months ago. Rather, it’s the successor to his 2011 Third Stream collaboration with the late, great Paul Motian, Consort In Motion You May Also Like: David Ake – Humanities (2018)
Drew Gress is a first-call bassist and has certainly earned the caché to have first-call players on his own albums. You May Also Like: Tim Berne’s Hardcell [Berne, Craig Taborn + Tom Rainey] – ‘Sensitive’ (2021) Tim Berne’s Hardcell [Berne, Craig Taborn + Tom Rainey] – ‘The Cosmos’ (2020)
The competing tubas heard on the opening seconds of Jason Robinson’s new big project Tiresian Symmetry made me instinctively utter three words: Very Very Circus. You May Also Like: Henry Threadgill Zooid – ‘Poof’ (2021) Liberty Ellman – ‘Last Desert’ (2020)
About fifteen years ago I bought a CD by a jazz pianist I had just heard about that I absolutely dug. Jumpstart! by Michael Wolff (1995) combined a few choice not-overly familiar covers with some compelling, advanced originals You May Also Like: Fernando Perdomo – ‘Self’ (2024) Jack DeJohnette, withRead More
by S. Victor Aaron Gerald Cleaver, along with Nasheet Waits, seems to always be the drummer on some really outstanding jazz records of late. Michael Formanek’s The Rub And Spare Change required virtuosic musicians playing at peak level to make it work, and Cleaver did his part and then some,Read More
by S. Victor Aaron I’ve always had a hard time distinguishing West Coast jazz from East Coast jazz by ear. I mean. I know it’s supposed to be a more smoothed-out “cooler” variant of the vigorous, sometimes jarring jazz that comes out of NYC and I know that guys likeRead More
by S. Victor Aaron The Claudia Quintet is an ensemble that goes by its own set of rules. With its slightly weird combination of vibes, accordion, sax, double-bass and drums, and songs that don’t follow the script of how songs go (but avoids skronkery and dissonance), the five piece bandRead More
John Surman may not be a household name on these American shores, but it’s hard to think of a sax guy out of Britain who has been more prolific over the last 40 years than this one. His own discography is a wide sweep over post-bop, avant garde, fusion, chamberRead More
by S. Victor Aaron The credits scream “Tim Berne music” but the music itself more suggests “George Russell” or “Carla Bley.” This is the initial impression I got from Drew Gress’ newest offering released last month, The Irrational Numbers. Modern jazz composer/bassist Drew Gress is one of those New YorkRead More
