Albums
05/20/12 By Philip Booth
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HighNote Records
Old-school funk and fusion? Contemporary R&B? Straight-ahead jazz? Open-air modal music? One never quite knows what to expect from a new Wallace Roney project—that is, aside from impressive blowing and a tone that, while still sometimes evocative of Miles...
05/20/12 By Bill Milkowski
Megaphone Heart
Zipa!
A member of the Tiptons Sax Quartet, Seattle-born, Brooklyn-based saxophonist-composer Jessica Lurie assembled an adventurous ensemble of guitarist-banjoist Brandon Seabrook, pianist Erik Deutsch, bassist Todd Sickafoose and drummer Allison Miller for her...
05/19/12 By Mike Shanley
Bright Light in Winter
Delmark Records
On Nicole Mitchell’s excellent 2011 album Awakening , guitarist Jeff Parker’s performance sounded like a collision of Grant Green’s crisp tone and James Blood Ulmer’s vocabulary. But Parker, probably best known as a member of the post-rock band Tortoise...
05/19/12 By Christopher Loudon
Girl Talk
Palmetto Records
To prepare for Girl Talk , a collection of loving homages to her role models, rather than listen to Sheila Jordan, Betty Carter, Nina Simone and others sing, Kate McGarry sought out interviews with them, drawing inspiration from their tales of courage and...
05/18/12 By Carlo Wolff
Discoveries
Steel Bird
Pianist Josh Nelson seems the type who, as a boy, gazed at the stars, wondering what kind of life exists out there; his fifth album, with its evocations of early sci-fi and fantasy, bubbles with that sort of wonder and curiosity. It’s a supple disc spanning...
05/18/12 By Bill Milkowski
Explosion!
Delmark Records
Chicagoan Jim Holman flaunts prodigious chops and a seasoned approach to piano that belies his 23 years on his impressive debut as a leader. With the loosely swinging rhythm section of bassist Brian Sandstrom and drummer Rusty Jones, he turns in stellar...
05/17/12 By Bill Milkowski
Mettle
Playscape Recordings
For 10 years now, guitarist Michael Musillami has had the kind of hand-in-glove fit with drummer George Schuller and bassist Joe Fonda that is truly rare in jazz. A prolific composer with a freebop bent, Musillami paints on a much bigger canvas here by augmenting...
05/16/12 By Shaun Brady
Book of Mae’bul (Another Kind of Sunrise)
AUM Fidelity
The third chapter of his sonic autobiography finds Darius Jones bringing his story up to the present, translating the events surrounding the saxophonist’s 2005 move to New York and emergence on the wider jazz scene. Where his two previous entries, 2009’s...
05/16/12 By Christopher Loudon
Lauren Henderson
laurenhendersonmusic.com
It remains a not-uncommon inclination among neophyte jazz singers to favor style over substance. On her eponymous debut album, Lauren Henderson is guilty as charged. Her funkification of both “Skylark” and “Born to Be Blue,” along with her reinterpretation...
05/16/12 By Bill Milkowski
Alex Foster's Condition
A longtime stalwart of the Saturday Night Live house band and former member of Jack DeJohnette’s Directions and Jaco Pastorius’ Word of Mouth big band and sextet, saxophonist Alex Foster stretches considerably as player-composer on his first leader project...
Also in Albums
- Acoustic Axis
- Afro-Cuban Grooves
- Afro-Cuban/Brazilian Vox
- Bassics
- Basslines
- Bassology
- Big Bands
- BlueTones
- Bones
- Brass Tracks
- Brazilian Tinge
- Briefs
- Countercurrents
- Crescent City Sounds
- Currents
- Dem Bones
- Drum Beat
- Dutch Treats
- Eighty-Eights
- Fused
- Fusion
- Grooves
- Guitartistry
- Holiday CD Roundup
- Mighty Clarinets
- Northern Lights
- Organics
- Organized
- Pianism
- Saxophonics
- Spheres
- Strung Out
- The Archivist
- Top 50 CDs of 2005
- Trioism
- Trumpet Voluntary
- Undertones
- Vibes
- Vox