Live At the South Bank Kieran Hebden/Steve Reid/ Mats Gustafsson

02/22/12 By Shaun Brady

Mats Gustafsson
Live At the South Bank
Smalltown Superjazzz

It serves as a fitting testament to drummer Steve Reid’s expansive imagination that a career beginning with James Brown and Horace Silver progressed to the point where his final years were spent in intense communication with the novel sounds of a British...

02/21/12 By Owen Cordle

Roger Humphries
Keep the Faith
Corona

Pittsburgh drummer Roger Humphries is perhaps best known for his three-year stint with the Horace Silver Quintet in the mid-’60s, during which the group recorded the Blue Note albums Song for My Father , The Cape Verdean Blues and The Jody Grind . Appropriately...

02/21/12 Undertones By Bill Milkowski

Joan Stiles
Three Musicians
Oo-Bla-Dee

This unusually flexible trio of piano (Joan Stiles), tenor sax (Joel Frahm) and drums (Matt Wilson) is marked by such playful counterpoint, mercurial shifting and spontaneous, deconstructive interplay that it could almost be placed in the comedy bins next...

02/20/12 By Philip Booth

Jeff Lorber Fusion
Galaxy
Heads Up

On his last record, 2010’s Now Is the Time , Jeff Lorber reclaimed the long-lost “fusion” part of his band name and brand identity. With Bobby Colomby and Yellowjackets bassist Jimmy Haslip co-producing, the keyboardist and composer deemphasized smooth-jazz...

02/19/12 By Lyn Horton

Gary Hassay and Michael Bisio
My Brother
Konnex Records

The red mandala-shaped image on the cover of My Brother suggests the introspective nature of the improvised set recorded by alto sax player Gary Hassay and bassist Michael Bisio. The 11 pieces on the album reflect an Oriental mindset in the improvisations...

02/19/12 By Lloyd Sachs

Tony Malaby
Novela
Clean Feed

Novela is an ideal title for an album with so much narrative appeal. All sorts of stories are told through the music on this unusual retrospective, which consists of songs written by saxophonist Tony Malaby for trios and quartets over the past decade and...

02/19/12 Undertones By Bill Milkowski

Terry Silverlight
In Concert
terrysilverlight.com

Drummer Terry Silverlight was a 14-year-old wunderkind when he appeared on his brother Barry Miles’ 1971 fusion landmark, White Heat . Forty years later, he still has that fire in his playing, as evidenced by this exhilarating live outing recorded at the...

MSMW Live: In Case the World Changes Its Mind Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood

02/18/12 By Philip Booth

Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood
MSMW Live: In Case the World Changes Its Mind
Indirecto

MSMW, in the studio and onstage, everywhere from Bear Creek Music Festival in the north Florida woods to the Montreal Jazz Festival, always sounds like a natural-born partnership—the deep jazz-funk and experimental genius of Medeski, Martin and Wood running...

02/17/12 By Bill DeMain

Greg Reitan
Daybreak
Sunnyside

Pianist Greg Reitan’s Daybreak seems custom-built for a late-September meander through Central Park on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Which is to say the record is pensive and beautiful and infused with delicate motion that conveys a sense of contentment tinged...

Re: Person I Knew: A Tribute To Scott LaFaro Phil Palombi

02/17/12 Undertones By Bill Milkowski

Phil Palombi
Re: Person I Knew: A Tribute To Scott LaFaro
Le Goat

Commemorating 50 years since the legendary bassist’s untimely passing, Phil Palombi plays the restored 1825 Prescott upright that once belonged to Scott LaFaro. Joined by one-time Bill Evans drummer Eliot Zigmund and veteran pianist Don Friedman, he performs...