by Mark Saleski Back in the late 1980s, there was a backlash of sorts against the new traditionalist tendencies in mainstream jazz. Wynton Marsalis and his cohorts had come along to celebrate (and honestly, expand upon) the early strengths of bop and, as usual, the major labels started releasing likeRead More
Yet another product from Moppa Elliot’s Hot Cup Records, which already says a lot about a record that shares the same label as Bryan And The Haggards, Puttin’ On The Ritz, and Mostly Other People Do The Killing. But we were already saying things — nice things — about Lundbom’sRead More
by Mark Saleski Jazz fans have always been sort of coy with the word ‘fusion.’ We like to make jokes about it, even applying a nickname of sorts — The F-Word — because we’d hate to admit that we’re ever serious about the genre. Yeah, fusion seems to get theRead More
Photo by Raj Naik by S. Victor Aaron Tomorrow, a jazz band that’s been around for 30 years will release their 21st album. Founded in the aftermath of Robben Ford’s The Inside Story (1979), Ford’s backing band has been making records since their self-titled album from 1981. Through several line-up changes,Read More
by S. Victor Aaron Since very early on we’ve eagerly pounced on records that re-image that dense, impenetrable period of Miles Davis between about 1969 and 1975 when he first defined fusion jazz and then kept redefining it again and again. This is music that doesn’t come easily to mostRead More
Photo from www.BobbySelvaggio.com by S. Victor Aaron For a serious post-bop performer to take a leap into Grooveland, it can often be a risky bet. Will they be able to keep their artistic integrity? Will they even care? A couple of years ago, alto saxophonist Bobby Selvaggio made his secondRead More
Ginger Baker’s all-too-brief ‘Horses & Trees’ was fusion in the most complete sense of the word.
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by Mark Saleski I’ve been reading bits and pieces of Henry Miller’s The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Miller’s collection of essays about his travels around the United States. The expatriate writer had wanted to see what his homeland had become, to get to the core of it all. As with all ofRead 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
