Heather Masse And Dick Hyman: Lock My Heart (Red House) With The Wailin’ Jennys and the Wayfaring Strangers and appearances on radio’s Prairie Home Companion, Heather Masse has attracted a following among folk and bluegrass fans. This album of duets with master pianist Dick Hyman discloses … [Read more...]

Miles Davis Quintet Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 (Columbia/Legacy) This three-CD, one-DVD set finds the trumpeter fomenting even more dramatic change than usual. The first volume in the so-called bootleg series of Davis concert recordings found his primarily acoustic 1967 … [Read more...]

Bill Frisell, The Disfarmer Project (La Huit) Belgian filmmaker Guillame Dero captures the eclectic guitarist Frisell, violinist Carrie Rodriguez, guitarist Greg Leisz and bassist Viktor Krauss in a live performance set to portraits by the 1950s Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer. Some of the … [Read more...]

Paul de Barros, Shall We Play That One Together? The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland (St. Martin’s Press) The nonagenarian pianist presented de Barros with every biographer’s hope, unrestricted access to his subject’s personal papers and nearly unrestricted access to her … [Read more...]

Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band, Santa Monica 1960 (Fresh Sound) Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band had three fewer musicians than most big jazz outfits. Its size permitted precision, flexibility and subtlety, yet the band had the power of sprung steel. In this concert from a half century … [Read more...]

JD Allen Trio: The Matador And The Bull (Savant) The tenor saxophonist has changed record labels but not sidemen or his conciseness. While many of his contemporaries’ solos demand endurance by player and listener alike, Allen expresses himself in short bursts of creativity; the longest track … [Read more...]

Scott Robinson: Bronze Nemesis (Doc-Tone) Robinson unleashes his imagination and a substantial cross section of his instrumental arsenal to pay homage to the 20th century pulp fiction adventure hero Doc Savage. He uses the colossal contrabass sax to great effect, but his otherworldly theremin … [Read more...]

Woody Herman, Blue Flame: Portrait Of A Jazz Legend (Jazzed Media) Producer Graham Carter traces Herman’s career from a vaudeville childhood through leadership of a succession of big bands that made him a formative influence in jazz for more than 50 years. Photographs, film and early television … [Read more...]

Wadada Leo Smith: Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform) The trumpeter and composer’s four-disc work is a monument to Black Americans’ struggles for freedom. The names of the 19 movements summon up key episodes in the story, among them “Dred Scott,” “Thurgood Marshall and Brown vs. Board of … [Read more...]

Ben Webster and Joe Zawinul: Soulmates (Riverside OJC) Long after Ben Webster became famous and when the pre-Weather Report Joe Zawinul was laboring as a sideman, the immigrant Austrian pianist and the seasoned tenor saxophonist became pals. In 1963 they made this album, a product of their … [Read more...]

Diana Krall: Glad Rag Doll (Verve) Krall takes a side trip into the 1920s and shows a bit of thigh on the album cover. Evidently, that’s all it takes to get the music business stirred up and the tweets and sales figures flying. How’s the music? Not bad. On some tracks, she has fun. On … [Read more...]

Johnny Griffin Live In France 1971 (Jazz Icons) One of the greatest second-generation bebop tenor players, Griffin (1928-2008), was also one of the fastest. He is often remembered for speed and excitement , but here his ballad playing is an equal attraction, notably on his “When We Were One” … [Read more...]

Ted Gioia: The Jazz Standards: A Guide To The Repertoire (Oxford) In nearly 500 pages, Gioia covers 254 songs that he considers the core of the jazz repertoire. They include compositions by jazz musicians as well as standard songs. Duke Ellington, of course, fits both categories. In a typical … [Read more...]

Branford Marsalis, Four MFs Playin’ Tunes (Marsalis Music) The Marsalis quartet achieves openness without abandoning harmonic guidelines, hipness without complex chord permutations. A saxophone soloist who manages to meld aggressiveness and wryness, Marsalis is at his peak here. The delight … [Read more...]

Ryan Truesdell, Centennial: Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans (artistShare) Truesdell apprenticed with arranger and composer Maria Schneider, who apprenticed with Gil Evans. That makes him, in effect, Evans’ musical and spiritual grandson. He does his heritage proud, taking 10 previously … [Read more...]

Alan Broadbent Trio Live At Giannelli Square, Volume 2 (Chilly Bin) Recorded in Los Angeles shortly before Broadbent transplanted himself to New York, Giannelli 2 is the equal of Volume 1. That is high praise. The pianist’s harmonic acuity, melodic invention, touch and rapport with bassist … [Read more...]

John Coltrane, Live In France, 1965 (Jazz Icons) Television cameras captured Coltrane with his classic quartet months before it disbanded and he began the space-bound journey he was on when he died two years later. At the Juan-le Pins Jazz Festival in Antibes, Coltrane, pianist McCoy Tyner, … [Read more...]

The Complete Stanley Dance Felsted “Mainstream Jazz” Recordings 1958-1959 (Fresh Sound) This nine-CD treasure chest contains dozens of the finest mainstream artists from a golden era. Stanley Dance, who applied the term mainstream to jazz, supervised the sessions for the British Felsted … [Read more...]