[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ROaU1XMB0FTvXF69Zv8xRM6k5unnmvCR"] Jan Lundgren, Flowers Of Sendai (Bee Jazz) Recorded six months before his acclaimed All By Myself, pianist Lundgren’s 2013 trio album contains two unaccompanied pieces that differ from the solo album and from one another. … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="lHp3TEDFoggx3hP280ijrM5Se3yP3U1E"] Brad Terry, I Feel More Like I Do Now Than I Did Yesterday (Lulu) The quotations on the back of this remarkable book include one from a Jazz Times review that I wrote many years ago. It calls Terry, “one of the well-hidden … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="PcJ5i5kJ6puXACvBV628A8h9lhA7RBcc"] Sam Most, From the Attic of My Mind (Elemental/Xanadu) There were flutists in jazz before Sam Most (1930-2013), but not many. He was the first to bring bebop to the instrument. His 1953 recording of “Undercurrent Blues” had a … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="TLH1WdYhIVHvwVCAtbPg77SdB0mAcFEh"] George Cables, In Good Company (High Note) The “Company” of the title refers to more than Cables’ trio members, bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Victor Lewis. It alludes to four fellow pianists whose compositions he plays in … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="rpj89ZFowulbekezvdjuWiu3iv83Fm5J"] Kenny Dorham, Quiet Kenny (Original Jazz Classics) Dorham was of the generation of trumpet players indebted to Dizzy Gillespie. As his playing gained individuality in the late forties, he developed into one of the trumpet’s great … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="wvWOnlAKTmBqGLaOlsmQm3M63x0rYZhE"] Antonio Sanchez, Three Times Three (CamJazz) Sanchez is inevitably associated with his improvised solo drum sound track of last year’s hit film Birdman. The essential part he played in the movie brought him to the attention of … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="IuFgvgqT4NG1zE0qaUN9h2oVWxsdL6bZ"] Andy Brown, Soloist (Delmark) In his liner note essay, Brown mentions ten guitarists he admires, some of them famous (Andres Segovia, Joe Pass, Chet Atkins), others heroes in the guitar community who are barely known to general … [Read more...]

Matthew Shipp Trio, To Duke (RogueArt) … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Fs0Ul1b4YHaW1gy1AZ8ZEgK4RKNuHP9J"] Tony Fruscella (Atlantic) Blogger and Rifftides reader JazzCookie commented that her Memorial Day song was “I’ll Be Seeing You.” That led to a reply including trumpeter Tony Fruscella’s 1955 recording of the Sammy Fain … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="tumAu7RyDvI3a2KqgWgDlvja2BGeg1us"] Steve Coleman and the Council of Balance, Synovial Joints (PI Recordings) Steve Coleman’s edgy alto saxophone and flute playing, iconoclastic composition methods and founding of the 1970s and ‘80s M-Base movement led the … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="TWB46Se2ilIuv8Fv41XXbqPyRDihx9AH"] Jack DeJohnette, Made In Chicago (ECM) Listeners accustomed to hearing drummer DeJohnette in the comparatively restrained Keith Jarrett Standards Trio may be taken aback by the audacity and abandon of the group he heads here. This … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="101O0b8f0RT8j5tNT34ov32aIiDtbYK1"] Charles Lloyd, Wild Man Dance (Blue Note) For the first three minutes of the opening “Flying Over The Odra Valley,” the Greek lyra of Sokratis Sinopoulos and the Hungarian cimbalom of Miklós Lucáks play what might be music … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Z2yR2Z6QdgVik54M78HUi3p2RS6JeR0W"] Jack Teagarden, Think Well of Me (Verve) Rifftides reader David Chilver, son of the guitarist Pete Chilver (1924-2008), writes from the UK that he recently found among his father's belongings a Jack Teagarden CD minus cover or … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="DRdJ2PtjDWP9D1CoZWW4ppjcTofqieav"] Tom Varner, Nine Surprises (Tom Varner Music) In writing for his nine-piece ensemble, Tom Varner layers and interleaves parts for the seven horns so that his textures of harmony and rhythm often create the illusion of a larger … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="t2hRqgDB8kzQEqNFq8Na8MGcDE2He21O"] Clark Terry, In Orbit (Riverside) The coincidence of trumpeter Clark Terry and producer Orrin Keepnews passing within a few days of one another brings to mind a timeless album on Keepnews’s Riverside label. Terry’s 1958 In … [Read more...]

Peter Pullman, Wail: The Life of Bud Powell (Pullman) Pullman’s research, detail and zeal override flaws of style in this indispensible study of the architect and spirit of modern jazz piano. The author is illuminating in his treatment of Powell’s early years as a child prodigy. He is … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ZGwnHJsnneOmHn0B3TvMCbZvbXJphhzg"] Vijay Iyer, Break Stuff (ECM) It would be safe to say that the pianist Vijay Iyer is the only jazz musician who constructs his music on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers introduced by the Medieval Italian mathematician. Safe that … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="lm6gpzMUqYBDWKMK2wxpGJ77KX5wMONa"] Lisa Parrott, Round Tripper (Serious Niceness Records) There is muscle and grit in the sound of Ms. Parrott’s baritone saxophone on Ornette Coleman’s “Round Trip.” Playing alto, she comes closer to essence of Coleman in … [Read more...]