Horace Silver Live at Newport ’58 (Blue Note) The wonderful accessibility of pianist Horace Silver’s work sometimes leads critics to undervalue it, as if only music that requires knitted brows and grim concentration could possibly qualify as legitimate art. Live at Newport ’58 puts the lie to that theory in [...]

Pat Metheny Day Trip (Nonesuch) Guitarist Pat Metheny has taken so many paths in his career that it almost seems strange when he ends up on the straight and narrow. But that’s exactly where he lands on this set of traditional trio pieces. A restless experimenter with both form and [...]

Maceo Parker Roots & Grooves (Heads Up) This is the third recent Heads Up release pairing West Germany’s WDR Big Band with icons, namely the Brecker Brothers, Joe Zawinul, and now a two-CD set with alto saxophonist Maceo Parker. As a teenager, Parker fell under the soulful influence of Ray [...]

Marc Copland with Gary Peacock & Paul Motian Voices (Pirouet) Marc Copland was a young saxophonist mustering critical praise in drummer Chico Hamilton’s band when he heeded the call of inner voices, dropped off the jazz scene for nearly a decade, and then returned in the mid-’80s as a harmonically [...]

Brian Blade Fellowship Season of Changes (Verve) Watching Brian Blade on stage with the Wayne Shorter Quartet, it’s impossible not to be moved by the ferocious intensity of this Louisiana-bred drummer – he’s in your face but entirely focused on musical interaction, given to tricky polyrhythms and dramatic bomb dropping [...]

Henry Butler PiaNOLA Live (Basin Street) Not so long ago, Henry Butler owned a great house in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood – a place with its own studio and plenty of room for his much-cherished, 1925-vintage Mason & Hamlin piano. Hurricane Katrina changed all that in August 2005, washing away [...]