photo: Arne Reimer by S. Victor Aaron A couple of summers ago I was treated to the pleasing but discerning modern jazz found all over Torben Waldorff’s Afterburn. The great Dane guitarist/composer who resides in Sweden is a household name in our little ‘berg on the internet, and needs noRead More

Since we’re on the topic of Austin-based acts, why not shift our focus to one of the most acclaimed and yet most elusive since the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan? I’m talking of course about the Arcangels. It would be impossible to discuss the Arcangels without a discussing their sometimes-volatileRead More

by Pico We all know that Austin, TX is a hotbed for music, with so many artists located there to take advantage of its vibrant scene. Normally when we think of Austin music, blues-rock, roots, folk and singer-songwriter acts come to mind, like The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Eric Johnson, Monte Montgomery,Read More

by S. Victor Aaron In the promo video below, pianist Orrin Evans performs the first cut from his new album Faith In Action, and the camera ever so slyly captures a picture of Thelonious Monk in the background. The subliminal advertising is undoubtedly intended to suggest that Evans’ playing styleRead More

by S. Victor Aaron A few weeks ago, with little warning, my office got transferred from the cozy suburbs to the concrete jungle. Stranded in a 7th floor cube farm in the middle of Gotham about 30 miles from home and averse to sitting still on freeways, it was timeRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Eric Alexander is a tenor sax specialist who comes from the same generation of reed players as Joshua Redman, who he finished second to in 1991 in that career-defining Thelonious Monk Institute sax competition, when Alexander was in early 20’s. Since then, he has been extremelyRead More

by S. Victor Aaron This article makes it twenty-three albums covered in the span of eight days, which put a nice dent in my backlog, and there’s just a couple more to go before turning our attention to the year 2009 in music. The batch of records covered here drawsRead More

by Nick DeRiso Marc Copland has this welcoming, inward voice — cerebral but somehow completely accessible, in the way of the most enchanting records by Bill Evans from years back. But as quiet as he can be, it seems that Copland never stops playing. “Alone” is actually the prolific pianist’sRead More

If you look at the list of past winners and finalists of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competitions, it’s quite impressive: Aaron Parks, Marcus Strickland, John Ellis, Sam Yahel and Miles Okazaki, just to name a few. In 2008, the winner was an alto and tenor saxophonist from the PhilippinesRead More

For this installment of the 2009 roundups, we lasso those stray cd’s of jazz that’s really “out there.” Hmmm, I think there’s a term for that kind of music. Despite hard times—and it’s really hard for those musicians who choose to play music entirely for art’s sake as these guysRead More