Ric Harris put his career as a jazz guitarist on hold to raise his kids and deal with a life long seizure disorder, so he can be excused to taken so long to make his first album, but he made the most of that long-delayed moment. Coming back to thisRead More

Jens Wendelboe is putting together some terrific stuff with his big band and Fresh Heat is the latest in what should be a regular occurrence on the jazz release calendar. You May Also Like: The Maharajas – You Can’t Beat Youth (2017) William Shatner and Canned Heat, “Let’s Work Together”Read More

At times, jazz vocalist Maria Neckam’s music sounds like Joni Mitchell during her mid-70s jazz excursion but with a Annette Peacock stream-of-conscienceness flow and Bjork-like modern sensibility, delivered with pipes as pure as Suzanne Vega. You May Also Like: Jacob Garchik – ‘Assembly’ (2022) Roberto Maria Zorzi, Michael Manring, ScottRead More

Amazon.com Widgets While many a pianist/vocalist duo has surely been influenced by the twin mid-1970s collaborations of Bill Evans and Tony Bennett, it’s another thing entirely to take those albums head on. You May Also Like: Rod Harris Jr., “I Can’t Tell You Why” from Exits and Options EP (2018):Read More

We tend to think of musicians who have been able to keep coming forth with creative, fresh ideas with nearly every attempt in the past tense. Mozart, Ellington, Miles, The Beatles are a few who can fit into that category but they are of long past eras. You May AlsoRead More

The Internet is chock full of “Unboxing” videos, the so-called “new geek porn.” I don’t find them particularly interesting but that’s because I’m fairly certain I’m not part of their target audience. You May Also Like: Jeff Cosgrove, with Matthew Shipp + William Parker – ‘Near Disaster’ (2018) Whit Dickey,Read More

Even while he was still a member of the platinum-era edition of Journey, Steve Smith began making his way back to jazz. You May Also Like: Steve Smith: The Albums That Shaped My Career

It’s hard to believe that 25 years have passed since gospel/jazz sextet Take 6 released their self-titled debut album. Since then they have established themselves as the premier acapella group You May Also Like: The Blind Boys of Alabama’s Down in New Orleans added a new musical wrinkle Doc CityRead More

Imagine if in the mountainous region of Albania or southern Yugoslavia during the Communist ruled days of the 1970s, the sons of sheep herders clandestinely tuned in to rock radio from the other side of the Iron Curtain You May Also Like: Thinking Plague – Hoping Against Hope (2017)

This is saxophonist Peter Brötzmann with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, though it in no way sounded like Kenny G with Yo-Yo Ma. It was recorded in an “industrial urban warehouse district.” It’s on the Atavistic label (read: not easy listening). Brötzmann scares me. He claims to be playing a saxophone butRead More