On Disparate Parts, her sixth disc, saxophonist Roxy Coss turns a corner and finds herself…
Auditions
Argentinean tenor sax player Julieta Eugenio is adding a distinctly fresh voice to New York…
Despite earning a Grammy nomination for their work on Angelique Kidjo’s 2021 album Mother Nature…
Andy James has had a genuinely varied career. Raised in Australia, she performed internationally as…
The session was a serendipitous once. Veteran drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, 82 at the time,…
The title Eighty Nine refers to saxophonist and clarinetist Charlie Gabriel’s age at the time…
The third installment in Robert Glasper’s jazz-meets-hip-hop series arrives a full 10 years after the…
Brad Mehldau is primarily known for his understated acoustic chamber-jazz efforts. Yet one would be…
Mood music for the cool kids? Space rock for jazzers? Atmospheric expressionism for the improv…
As jazz composers continue to develop and expand compositional formats, their endeavors sometimes leave listeners…
Even during more normal times, Eugenie Jones’ goal would have been difficult to achieve. The…
Madrid-born and New York-based Marta Sanchez outdoes herself as both a composer and a pianist…
Nearly everything about Feeding the Machine feels unexpected, and that may be the best thing…
Neon is an appropriate title for Canadian pianist Andrew Boudreau’s latest recording. The album is…
Tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana’s star has been rising for years, building on an advancing artistic…
As indicated by its title, New Gospel Revisited recasts the compositions featured on trumpeter Marquis…
If you haven’t heard of pianist Adam Berenson, it’s not for lack of his trying.…
Portuguese pianist Júlio Resende intentionally obscures the line between his homeland’s deeply rooted fado music…
Bassist Tyler Mitchell joined the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1985, touring with the troupe and…
Bassist John Hébert reshapes and reimagines the standard jazz quintet on this album of four…
Hébert originals like “Constrictor” and “The Blank-Faced Man” shuffle the group into different configurations, the tempos break down and rebuild at odd moments, and lyrical moments turn dissonant unexpectedly. Hébert’s arrangements of Mingus’ “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love” and “Remember Rockefeller at Attica” are affectionate tips of the hat to a pioneer of the small ensemble trickery that this band perpetuates in its own style.
All of this would sound labored if the band wasn’t having such a good time and wasn’t so at ease with the music’s demands. Their interactions are so tight that distinctions between soloist and accompanist blur, composing and improvising blend seamlessly, and there’s an infectious sense of fun throughout. Bynum’s virtuoso mute work on “Constrictor” sets the album’s tone of serious playfulness with boisterous whoops and growls. On “Love What?” Hersch’s solo hovers restlessly in the air with ambiguous grace, a string of questions left unanswered. The leader’s opening unaccompanied solo, on “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love,” features dancing lines and deep-down riffs punctuated by strummed chords. With his sharp lines and piquant tone, saxophonist Berne varies the quirky rhythms of Hébert’s puckish “Frivolocity,” providing an upbeat ending to a delightfully creative album. — Ed Hazell
https://open.spotify.com/album/2CBDbOFHP4FdBXXOpiteqN?si=WavU7kpUSliqEr2XJaoH9Q