We continue in our doomed effort to keep up with recent (more or less) releases. Billy Hart, All Our Reasons (ECM) For months I have been listening repeatedly to this CD, one of last year’s best. Somehow, I didn’t get around to writing about it until now. Hart, a drummer of flexibility, wide range and exquisite sensitivity, is billed as the leader of a quartet formed in 2003 by the tenor saxophonist Mark Turner and the pianist Ethan Iverson. The bassist is Ben Street. The four have … [Read more...]

On opposite coasts of the US, Jim Wilke (Washington State) and Bill Kirchner (New Jersey) will present stimulating jazz listening this Sunday. Here’s Wilke’s announcement: Anat Cohen has been winning both critics and readers national jazz polls for several years and she tours continually, playing major jazz festivals and clubs around the world. The last week of July found her in Port Townsend, WA where she was teaching and performing at Centrum's annual jazz workshop and festival at Fort … [Read more...]