Mary Halvorson / Joe Morris - "Traversing Orbits" - Mary Halvorson (guitar), Joe Morris (guitar)

Classical Music

2018 release. Trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson's 3 Times Round is his first release since the widely-lauded Moving Still, which was named one of the top albums of 2016 by the New York Times and the best release of the year by PopMatters, who called it "clean and cool while still ripping with adventure." Among the most admired young musicians on the scene, Finlayson is the first-call of innovative musicians seeking a trumpeter who is able to negotiate the most complex musical material yet still bring his own sense of individuality and verve. These includes a stunning list of cutting-edge artist such as Henry Threadgill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Steve Lehman, Mary Halvorson and, of course, Steve Coleman, with whom Finlayson has played with for the last 18 years. Finlayson is joined on 3 Times Round by the alto and tenor saxophones of Steve Lehman and Brian Settles, which he intertwines with his own horn with fluidity and grace. The inventive pieces leave plenty of room to showcase each musician's distinctive improvisational personalities, yet still convey an overarching sense of narrative mystery. It's another purposeful step forward for a young artist on the rise.

The album comprises nine thematically related songs by Mehldau and features performances by him on piano, synthesizers, percussion, and Fender Rhodes, as well as vocals. Guest musicians include Ambrose Akinmusire, Sara Caswell, Kurt Elling, Joel Frahm, Mark Guiliana, Gabriel Kahane, and Becca Stevens, among others.

Unfortunately it's not very often that we get to hear Mike LeDonne, world-renowned Hammond B-3 organist and leader of the acclaimed Groover Quartet, fronting a piano trio session-especially one that unfolds in as swinging, soulful and intuitive fashion. But given the caliber of artists involved, this won't come as a surprise since on this CD LeDonne works two of his closest and most accomplished friends: bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash. It's no coincidence, then, that this unprecedented studio alliance sparks instant chemistry and conviviality. With a stack of new arrangements under his arm, LeDonne and company made the trek across the Hudson to the famed Van Gelder Studio and emerged with an album remarkable for it's spontaneity, creativity and sheer joy in the act of making music.

Tomas Fujiwara - "7 Poets Trio" - Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Tomeka Reid (cello)

Phalanx Ambassadors is the latest release from pianist/keyboardist/composer Matt Mitchell, whom PopMatters calls "the most complete and well-integrated improvising pianist of the last 15 years." They also called his prior release, A Pouting Grimace, "brilliant and varied... animated by breathtaking compositional imagination and startling arrangements." His bold new release features works that burst forth with intricate detail, featuring precise execution of complex polyrhythms and irrational meters, adventurous harmonic exploration and otherworldly melodies. While rigorously structured, the music leaves ample room for varied layers of improvisation. The eponymously-named band - with Mitchell on piano and keyboards, Miles Okazaki on guitars, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone and marimba, Kim Cass on bass, and Kate Gentile on drums, along with producer David Torn - immerse themselves completely in Mitchell's idiosyncratic sound world, creating music that eludes genre boundaries and comparisons.

2019 release from the jazz tenor saxophonist. "I've been fortunate to have performed with so many wonderful musicians in the past but I live in the present and it hasn't stopped. I certainly enjoy what I'm doing these days." The consistently intriguing Seven Rays is yet another accomplishment in Jerry Bergonzi's productive and significant career. It finds the great the saxophonist reveling in jagged, tightly coiled phrases and steeped in remote harmonic progressions. His angular riffs, unexpected silences and big, barreling low pitches continue to underline how personal Bergonzi's approach to jazz is. Yet the charismatic nature of his delivery and the steely brilliance of his tone proves so compelling that his art speaks eloquently to both the esoteric theoreticians and the most casual of listeners.

Classical Music

The Sky Below is guitarist Miles Okazaki's sequel to his critically-acclaimed Trickster (Pi 2017), which the New York Times labeled "tenacious futurism" and Pitchfork called "obviously complex, the work of virtuosi." The album received critics' picks in both Downbeat and JazzTimes, acclaimed as "an intellectually hefty album that feels weightless" and "a real breakthrough." The Sky Below continues the story of Trickster, this time following the classical arc of an oceanic voyage, where the character travels across a boundary ("Rise and Shine"), enters the unknown ("Dog Star"), visits magical islands ("Anthemoessa" and "Seven Sisters"), is caught in a storm ("Monstropolous"), abandoned ("The Castaway"), and finds a way home ("The Lighthouse"). For these songs, Okazaki took each of the compositions from Trickster, reduced them to their basic components, and rewrote new compositions from this genetic material to maintain their symbolic and sonic continuity. The Trickster band is comprised of Okazaki on guitar, Anthony Tidd on electric bass, Sean Rickman on drums, with the addition of Matt Mitchell on piano. A first-call musician on the cutting edge of jazz, Mitchell also prominently features Okazaki on his latest release, Phalanx Ambassadors (Pi 2019). The team of Tidd and Rickman, whom Okazaki first played with as the rhythm section of saxophonist Steve Coleman's Five Elements, form a seamless rhythmic foundation for the band. Together, they demonstrate the ability that they have honed for decades of negotiating abstract musical information while maintaining an unstoppable rhythmic drive. With it's narrative structure and Okazaki's judicious use of studio effects, The Sky Below evokes the fathomless depths of the sea, both familiar and strange.

2019 release. Hailed by The New York Times as "a state-of-the-art musical thinker" and "a quietly dazzling saxophonist," Steve Lehman has built a career creating innovative, uncompromising music that packs a visceral wallop. His signature alto sound - searing with emotional intensity and crystal clear articulation - has been featured in high-profile partnerships with Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, and Bennie Maupin. At just 40-years-old, he has achieved wide critical acclaim - various albums have landed the #1 album of the year slots in the New York Times and the NPR Critics Poll - with groundbreaking projects that have run the gamut from melding jazz with Senegalese hip-hop to French spectral music. With his latest album, The People I Love, Lehman revisits his jazz roots, reflecting his mentorship with Jackie McLean, a giant of this music. The album features his long-running trio with drummer Damion Reid (Robert Glasper Trio) and bassist Matt Brewer (SF Jazz, Gonzalo Rubalcaba). Together, the group make their mark on Lehman's compositions and arrangements that, while seemingly impossibly complex, are executed with effortless grace and with emphasis on emotional intensity. The album is a modern day referendum on the possibilities for the alto saxophone quartet tradition for 2019 and beyond.

2021 release. Smooth jazz superstar Marion Meadows is without question one of the most popular and unique talents on the jazz scene today. Blessed with movie star looks and the smoothest saxophone tone on the on the planet, Marion has sold over one million albums in his brilliant career. His constant string of radio hits and relentless touring have garnered legions of fans, and his appearances with such varied artists as The Temptations, Michael Bolton and Will Downing are a testament to his broad audience appeal. Twice As Nice, Marion's most intimate and heartfelt album to date, takes the listener on a sensuous journey through a soundscape of brilliant original compositions and masterful improvisations. The album is produced by smooth jazz superstars in their own right: Grammy winners Jeff Lorber and Paul Brown plus Marion's long-time collaborator, Chris "Big Dog" Davis (Will Downing, Gerald Albright, Maysa).

One of the most distinctive saxophonists to emerge during the late 1950's, while Clifford Jordan did not achieve the mass adulation enjoyed by Gerry Mulligan or Roland Kirk, his work remains just as influential, esteemed and unique. Indeed, whereas many of his contemporaries favoured rough attacks and a hard-boiled fervour, Jordan instead perfected a light, floating approach. A typical Cliff Jordan solo used juxtaposition: a low note might break up a be-bop line, or an upper-register squeal would punctuate an evolving panorama of ideas. And Jordan was one of the few modern tenor saxophonists to use Lester Young as an inspiration, while his playing was always extraordinarily musical, never relying on second hand ideas. This four CD set features Cliff Jordan's first eight albums as leader or co-leader, recorded and released between 1957 and 1962 - the years generally accepted as the great man's golden age. Containing a masterful array of unique and individualistic jazz music, and featuring some of the world's finest musicians backing the maestro, the compilation works both as a fine introduction to Clifford Jordan's extraordinary music and as the go-to collection for those ready conversant.

If you trace the path of alto saxophonist Jim Snidero's varied output for Savant, you'll note transitions with regard to instrumentation and personnel: from organ combo to quartets with guitar or piano, to the animated quintet music of tributes to Miles (MD66) and Cannonball Adderley (Jubilation!). With Waves of Calm, the veteran altoist enters a period of zeroing in on the essentials. As the saxophonist himself says, "I find myself editing more and more. I've been playing saxophone for a long time, and could easily play a lot more notes...[but now] you're just looking for the right note at the right moment, searching for that one perfect thing." With trumpeter Jeremy Pelt on half the tracks, piano phenom Orrin Evans at the Steinway & the Rhodes and Nat Reeves and Jonathan Barber completing the rhythm section, it would Jim Snidero has indeed found that"perfect thing."

2021 release. The recording features the pianist/composer and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, who commissioned this orchestral version of the work, which comprises a theme and eleven variations plus a cadenza and postlude; the album also includes an encore, "Variations 'X' and 'Y.'" (Mehldau originally composed Variations on a Melancholy Theme for pianist Kirill Gerstein.) Mehldau and Orpheus toured Europe, Russia, and the US with the piece, including a 2013 performance at Carnegie Hall. Speaking to the combination of classical form with jazz harmonies in the work's musical language, Mehldau wrote, "I imagine it as if Brahms woke up one day and had the blues."Mehldau continues, "The theme itself has a wistful character, perhaps a feeling of resignation. There is some sense of finality and ending to it when heard for the first time already. So as I composed, a narrative challenge emerged; namely, how to embark on a story that begins with a conclusion. While the theme evokes melancholy, I let it be used as a springboard for other happy, wild, violent, and reckless emotions as the variations progress."

Mike LeDonne belongs to an elite group of musicians - those who have mastered the piano AND the organ while creating original voices for each. However, here on It's all Your Fault, LeDonne sits down at the organ, puts his foot on the pedals and lays down some of the hippest organ licks you're likely to hear. Two groups are featured on this recording. Mike LeDonne's Groover Quartet has had the rare opportunity to play and record together for twenty years and counting. They had no difficulty integrating their sound into this all-star big band put together by Mike and his preferred arranger and conductor, Dennis Mackrel. Recorded in the famed Van Gelder studio and actually using the original Hammond C-3 organ that Jimmy Smith et al. Used to record the music within this recording is adventurous. It's a continuation of the groove that was established years ago by organists interacting with big bands and it reveals to us the Blues, the Rhythm & Blues and the Jazz that Mike heard coming up through the jazz ranks.

As quiet as it is kept, vocalist/composer Meredith d'Ambrosio has become one of jazz music's most highly regarded storytellers and performers. Her artful approach to musical interpretation has been treasured by many and has inspired numerous fruitful collaborations. Her new recording, Some Other Time, finds her working with two masters of song, pianist Randy Halberstadt and trumpeter Don Sickler.

2020 release. Though he invited in collaborators for this project, Parker is very much a solo artist on Suite for Max Brown. He constructs a digital bed of beats and samples; lays down tracks of his own on guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion, and occasionally voice; then invites musician friends to play and improvise over his melodies. But unlike a traditional jazz session, Parker doesn't assemble a full band in the studio for a day or two of live takes. His accompanists are often working alone with Parker, reacting to what Parker has provided them, and then Parker uses those individual parts to layer and assemble into his final tracks. The process may be relatively solitary and cerebral, but the results feel like in-the-moment jams-warm-hearted, human, alive. Suite for Max Brown brims with personality, boasting the rhythmic flow of hip hop and the soulful swing of jazz.

The deftly titled Hand Painted Dream is the culmination of guitarist / arranger / leader Peter Hand's work with some of the best musicians anywhere and whose collective efforts have produced an extraordinary testament to the best in modern big band music. With the supremely talented Camille Thurman contributing a track each on saxophone and vocals, the ensemble can easily be considered an "all-star" group, with trumpeters Eddie Allen & Valery Ponomarev, saxophonists, Don Braden, Bruce Williams, trombonist James Burton III and a dream rhythm section of James Weidman, Harvie S, Steve Johns and Hand himself. The resulting band is at once bold & beautiful, swinging & suave while consistently playing the imaginative arrangements with extraordinarily nuanced musicianship.

This is music for the time after. After so many trends and the aftermath of 20th century's aesthetic propositions this is music that reflects into itself and contemplates itself on a historical mirror without recurring to the alibi of the "tribute". This is music that, as poet Ezra Pound said, assumes "the tradition is a beauty we preserve and not a set of fetters to bind us. Some may say Javier Red picks up where Chicago pioneer Lennie Tristano had left his experiences of organized freedom. And it wouldn't be wrong. This is cool and smart music, shamelessly intellectual. It is both highly conceptual and very focused on vindicating the craft, the careful embroidering of the musical tapestry. Not unlike Tristano's, Javier's music is extraordinarily demanding on the musicians because of the level of skills expected from them but also because of the deep commitment that it is required to perform it. Knowing your changes, patterns and scales is not enough to play this music in which the form is reinvented for each composition and where shifting time signatures and bi-tonal or poly-tonal passages bring the complexity of Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, and the Mexican genius Silvestre Revueltas right into the 21st century jazz alchemy.

Uptown: The Fat Babies' fourth album on the Delmark Records label, features the new, expanded, 8-piece version of the the band. The music is a mix of original music written by members of the band, and classic jazz tunes by artists like King Oliver, Tiny Parham, The New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Andy Kirk and Eubie Blake. If you enjoy listening or dancing to music from the classic jazz era (20s/30s), but done with a very real and youthful spirit, this is the disc for you.

Classical Music

2021 release. Smooth Jazz Icon Richard Elliot has performed and recorded with jazz and R&B superstars Rod Stewart, Smokey Robinson, The Yellow Jackets, Tower Of Power, Bonnie Raitt, just to name a few. With more than 20 top ten smooth jazz singles and number 1 contemporary jazz albums, he has delighted his dedicated fan base from coast to coast. Authentic Life, produced by Richard and his long-time collaborator Rick Braun, overflows with Richard's ebullient spirit. Highlights include the funly Lorber/Elliot original "Snapshot", a deeply moving cover of the Gino Vanelli classic "Living Inside Myself", the uplifting "Boogie, " and Much more!!

Sisterhoods have been steadily moving toward the forefront of the jazz scene. Elevated by purpose and promise, and upholding the virtues of equality and community, these sororities have become a substantial force in the music today. Monika Herzig, a thoughtful composer and inventive pianist, has become a key figure in the movement toward enlightenment. To take the message into the studio and out on the road, Herzig has assembled an all-star band of greats - "Sheroes" as she likes to call them - who selflessly work together in presenting a judicious blend of covers and originals. Leni Stern's guitar helps to frame each song in the proper light; cellist Akua Dixon adds varicolored hues in her appearances; bassist Jennifer Vincent and drummer Rosa Avila (along with guest percussionist Mayra Casales) form a flexible unit capable of buttressing with strength and sensitivity; Lakecia Benjamin's alto shines in it's flights; while the flute-trombone partnership of Jamie Baum and Reut Regev proves to be a match made in heaven. With Herzig's pen and piano serving as the ties that bind, this declaration of unity truly delivers. All hail the conquering Sheroes.

A fount of harmonic ingenuity, melodic integrity, and rhythmic authority, Jerry Bergonzi has long been a standard-bearer of sorts for the jazz community. A prolific composer prone to taking deep dives that put serious theory into profound practice, his discography is filled with smart and imaginative originals that twist and turn in unexpected fashion. But a passion for standard gems of yesteryear, the lingua franca of jazz, also fires his creative impulses and figures into his work. In fact, the tried-and-true classics serve as a source of limitless potential for his horn. This follow-up to his Spotlight on Standards session once again features Bergonzi's slightly off-center take on the tenor-organ-drums trio format while the songs on this set list function as both reminders about Bergonzi's eminence in the jazz world and love letters from the man to the music. "I just adore the melodies of these tunes. I love standards. People always tell me, 'Man, you've got to make more records like this,'" Bergonzi says, "and I'm happy to oblige. I'm just delighted that Savant is totally behind me and this music."