by S. Victor Aaron Listening to Shawn Costantino’s Waltz For Anne, you’re reminded of Stanley Turrentine or Gene Ammons. Also, he takes on a few standards, but only one of them (“The Touch of your Lips”) is a jazz one. The other two are taken from The Beatles (“Can’t BuyRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Growing up in the Detroit area, Sam Trapchak’s dad played electric bass, and like most musically interested young boys in America, Sam wanted to play guitar. But his father persuaded him to take up bass instead with a piece of irrefutable logic: Everyone always needs aRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Women continue to move into areas of jazz long dominated by men, and in a big way. Even since I made a big to-do about this trend a couple of summers ago, the parade of girls muscling their way into the boys’ club continues on strongerRead More

by S. Victor Aaron NOLA-based Plunge is back again to follow up on their stripped down trombone-based brand of funky jazz found on Dancing On Thin Ice, Tin Fish Tango. Once again, ‘bone player Mark McGrain leads a small ensemble with bassist James Singleton of Astral Project, a sax playerRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Bassist Luther Hughes leads a tenor sax/alto sax quintet in its forth recording paying tribute to the spirit of Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane. Specifically, The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago album recorded with Miles Davis’ band sans Miles himself just six months before they allRead More

Photograph by Andy Goetz By Nick DeRiso Big Sam’s Funky Nation, all brass and sass, opens its latest CD with a floor-rattling invitation to shake every thing you’ve got. For all of its musical prowess, that remains the one and only goal of this fun-loving, funky-butt recording by New Orleans-basedRead 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 Missoula, Montana’s own Nathaniel Smith has had a career as a jazz drummer and composer that took him from a mountain valley in the Rockies eastward to Appleton, Wisconsin’s Lawrence University (where Smith got to perform with the visiting Dave Holland and Maria Schneider), briefly westRead More

In 2008, then-21 year old tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger issued his debut CD Dry Bridge Road, one that made much of an impression. Fresh out of the New England Conservatory, Dry Bridge Road racked up recognition from publications like Jazztimes, Jazz Review and the Village Voice, where it won theRead More

photo: Tom Lau S. Victor Aaron In preparing to assess Jane Ira Bloom’s brand new CD Wingwalker, I pulled out the prior one, the excellent Mental Weather from 2008. The striking comparison between the two became obvious before I even pulled the CD from the sleeve; I quickly noticed thatRead More