CD Reviews (11563)
Find full CD and individual track reviews of your favorite jazz artists right here, and hopefully you also discover some new artists to add to your collection as well.
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This Seattle-based progressive-rock outfit offers a refreshing perspective on a multifaceted genre, where cherished stylizations from the past are merged with a futuristic outlook. Following up the celebrated 2009 Moonjune Records debut manifest deNsity, Moraine's energetic attack and deterministic focus parlays into a vibrant live setting recorded at North East…
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Electronica sans the house music dance element is integrated into the ECM aesthetic on this 2-CD set, engineered by Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer. Using select and largely acoustic tracks culled from ECM Records vast catalogue, the artists re-mix, deconstruct or beautify themes and segments throughout. Atmospheric, but primarily designed…
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It's not often that one begins an album with a drum solo, but that's the sort of thing that makes one take notice. Guitarist Mike Baggetta is full of surprises on his second release with this quartet, with unusual moods and textures the order of the day. A hot young…
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Psychedelic pranksters M'lumbo return with the amusingly titled Celestial Ghetto. The title of the album is quite fitting as M'lumbo draw from many sources, and can alternate seamlessly between the gritty and the ethereal. With M'lumbo, there is no distinction between high and low art where refined soloing is…
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After 75 Years is an ambitious work. Macy Chen has created a concept album of sorts about the parallel lives of herself and her grandfather. Both Chen and her grandfather, Chin-Chang Liu, had left their homes in Taiwan to pursue jazz music, against the practical wisdom of their friends and…
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The Realm of the Guitar Gods continues to be inhabited long after its time had supposedly ended. However, a new wing has to be added to accommodate the electric violin of Susan Aquila. As virtuosos go, she’s right at the top, but sounding sometimes like Jean Luc Ponty but…
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Piano dominates most piano trios. (Maybe that's why they don't call it a drum or bass trio, eh?) Thing is, this group is just called "a trio." Although the piano does carry most of the melody line, the blend and sound levels make the three instruments as much equals as…
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Musical labels are as much a blessing as they are a curse, their primary function serving as a musical guide to more effectively market and sell a particular artist. Keeping in mind that taste is as subjective as the continued debate as to the accuracy of certain sub-genres, enter Kekko…
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Nothing is more fun or exciting for a critic as to be introduced to an artist stone cold, no press release just "good buzz." On occasion good buzz is literally all that can be said on a release but not this time. Combine Brazilian bassist Nilson Matta with Israeli be-bop guitarist…
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This historic 2005 reunion at London's fabled Royal Albert Hall and stacks up to be a classic reunion, packaged in the high definition, Blu-ray format. Featuring 19-songs culled from Cream's relatively brief tenure, the band along with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, helped define the rock power-trio format.
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Currently residing in New York City, keyboardist John Escreet hails from the U.K and professes a novel outlook, while making a significant impression with critics and progressive-jazz advocates based on five largely acclaimed albums. The artist once again aligns with the crème de la crème of modern jazz adventurists, including…
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During the numerous theoretical waves of music and its major influences, the annals of music's scrolls have recorded many activists of the art of sound which have risen to become the statesperson of their chosen pulpit. Rock and roll had the Beatles, Nirvana, and Elvis taking front stage; the classics…
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Keep an eye out for this group— there is serious potential here.
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The recording is dedicated Mr. Yoshitaka Sugaya, a personal friend of the group who was lost in the tsunami disaster in March, 2011. This lends a personal and tragic feel to this often raw recording. Free Jazz fans will likely find a lot to interest them here.
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A restless musical spirit who has worked in pretty much every sub-genre of jazz and improvised music you can think of, Wadada Leo Smith's "Heart's Reflections" is a sprawling 2-CD set that covers a bewilderingly vast swath of stylistic ground. What makes "Heart's Reflections" such a fascinating listen is the…
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Only someone as artistically gifted as Chris Standring and Kathrin Shorr can take my Christmas music formula (Do you know the tunes?) and proceed to destroy it with ten delightful originals on a wonderful Christmas release. Virtually two years in the making Standring and vocalist Kathrin Shorr deliver the goods with…
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Radio Silence, the latest CD by the Neil Cowley Trio is an entertaining collection of orginal compositions executed with sensitivity and energy that delivers the listener to another place.The trio of Cowley on piano, Richard Sadler on bass and Evan Jenkins on drums is a is a developed unit with…
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Mauro Gargano double bass player and composer born in Bari (Italy) studied classical and jazz with Maurizio Quintavalle, Furio di Castri, and Christian Gentet then with Riccardo DelFra at the National Superior Conservatory of Paris where he won a first prize.
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Dave Douglas is one of the most innovative and creative musicians in modern jazz. Unlike many other trumpet players he has been trying throughout the years to create his own musical vocabulary. After completing his studies at Berklee School of Music, Douglas moved back to New York where he joined…
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Flutist Ali Ryerson returns to the studio with an all-star cast of collaborators.
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