October 5th, 2023
Ornette Coleman’s Divisive Blue Note Era Tone Poet series box set ‘Round Trip: Ornette Coleman On Blue Note’ is a first-class documentBy: Malachi Lui
Binging Ornette Coleman’s discography, from his early Contemporary recordings to his historic Atlantic period then the Blue Note releases and beyond, is a truly enriching experience. One hears how his sound developed over his first decade of recordings, how certain musicians fit in his groups, how he started exploring other instruments beside his usual alto sax. Last year, Blue Note’s Tone Poet series released Round Trip, a 6LP box set containing his mid-late 1960s... Read More
September 26th, 2023
Aaron Diehl Tackles Mary Lou Williams' Long-Lost Masterpiece The full jazz-orchestral "Zodiac Suite" re-created for the first time since 1946By: Fred Kaplan
Aaron Diehl & the Knights’ Zodiac Suite may be the most important album of the year, but because “important” is such a wearying word, implying obligation and cryptic boredom, I should quickly add that it’s also an album of joy, swing, and surprise.It is the first complete, professional recording of Mary Lou Williams’ orchestral-jazz composition of that title, and therein lies a story.Williams, who died in 1981 at the age of 71, was a pianist and composer who... Read More
September 23rd, 2023
Craft Does the "One Step" With Monk small batch "Brilliant Corners" limited to 4000 gives more buyers a chance to get oneBy: Michael Fremer
It could be a violent musical shock for a young jazz enthusiast in the early 1960s to discover 1957's "brilliant corners" after being introduced to Thelonious Monk on one of his later Columbia albums like 1963's "Criss-Cross". I speak from personal experience.I'd bought Criss-Cross when it was first released. It was my first Monk album. I knew nothing about Monk but I liked his name. I thought it and Monk were pretty wild. The record... Read More
September 22nd, 2023
Monk in Mono Has It All – Even The Bass "Monk's Music" reissue by The Electric Recording Company shows why mono is the way to go with this classic.By: Jan Omdahl
Monk's Music by the Thelonious Monk Septet was recorded in 1957, simultaneously in mono and stereo. A new mono reissue showcases the importance of microphone placement and recording methodology.
Read MoreSeptember 14th, 2023
Mingus Box Set of His 1970s Atlantic Recordings Is A Treasure Trove And A Mixed Bag 8 LP set highlights the later Atlantic output of the great bassist, composer and arranger.By: Jan Omdahl
Charles Mingus’ format as a deeply spiritual, playfully inventive and stylistically uninhibited composer, bassist and bandleader is very much in evidence on Changes: The Complete 1970s Atlantic Recordings, an 8 LP (or 7 CD) box set of his late-era recordings for the label.
September 7th, 2023
Darcy James Argue's Big-Band Wonderland The brilliant composer-conductor's 4th album is by far his bestBy: Fred Kaplan
Darcy James Argue has evolved over the past 15 years, into one of our era’s great big-band composers and leaders, second only to Maria Schneider and, increasingly, a force worth taking on the same level of seriousness. His 4th and latest album, Dynamic Maximum Tension—his first in six years and his debut on the Nonesuch label—is his best to date: a work of stunning versatility and complexity, but thoroughly accessible, borderline passionate, for all its intricate maneuvers.
Read MoreAugust 31st, 2023
Which "Jazz Samba" Sounds Best? if ever there was a "belongs in every collection" record, this classic is oneBy: Michael Fremer
"Jazz Samba" wasn't the first Bossa Nova record released in The United States, and it wasn't called one, but it was, and upon its release in 1962 it broke open the Brazilian music floodgate. Within months of its release there was Bossa Nova everything. This record was also the first in a popular series of Creed Taylor produced Verve releases featuring on their covers Olga Albizu's abstract art. It was a winning formula.Recorded in a single day... Read More
August 27th, 2023
Blue Note Classics Reissues Cecil Taylor’s ‘Unit Structures’ 1966 avant-garde essential gets first all-analog reissueBy: Malachi Lui
For Cecil Taylor, the word “jazz” didn’t represent the music’s rich historical and geographical lineage. The further he progressed, the more he distanced himself from such strict definition. And considering his music, why wouldn’t he? A classically-trained pianist who worshipped Ellington but also studied and admired Stockhausen and Xenakis, it took almost a decade before Taylor’s brilliance fully revealed itself in the studio. Yet even on his debut album, the 1956... Read More
August 25th, 2023
The Late Trumpeter Jaimie Branch's Third And Final Recorded Flight Will Elevate Your Life she passed away unexpectedly at age 39By: Michael Fremer
On my previous endeavor, June of 2020 writer Jeff Flaim covered, and we discovered avant-garde trumpeter Jaimie Branch and her supercharged, trumpet, drum, bass, cello quartet: Lester St. Louis, cello, voice, flute, marimba, keyboard, Jason Ajemian, double bass, electric bass, voice, marimba, and Chad Taylor, drums, mbira, timpani , bells, marimba. What do you call this? Punk Rock improvisatory jazz? The off the charts energy level of beating drums, bass, churning... Read More
August 22nd, 2023
"A Love Supreme" Gets A Supreme Analogue Productions UHQR Release is this the best sounding "A Love Supreme" and even if it is, is it worth $150?By: Michael Fremer
"Don't throw your love away, No, no, no, no, Don't throw your love away, For you might need it someday". Lyrics from a song first recorded by The Orlons but later made popular by The Searchers. Good advice then and now.I'm not exactly "late to the fair" on this classic Coltrane album. I bought it new when it was first released January, 1965. A kid in my Cornell University, University Halls 3 dorm said "just get it" and so I... Read More
August 21st, 2023
Tony Williams' Baffling Masterpiece The great drummer, at age 20, defying jazz gravityBy: Fred Kaplan
Spring, drummer Tony Williams’ 1965 album on Blue Note, his second release as a leader, is a baffling recording. It’s a masterpiece. It reveals new angles, unlocks new mysteries on each listening. But beats me how or why it works.Williams (who, at the time, went by “Anthony Williams”) is credited with composing all five tracks, but except for one of them, “Love Song,” which has the structure and grace of a song, it’s hard to detect just what parts of what we hear were... Read More
August 19th, 2023
Ornette Coleman’s Contemporary LPs, Luxuriously Reissued by Craft ‘Genesis Of Genius’ documents his more conventional early outingsBy: Malachi Lui
Last year, Craft Recordings released Genesis Of Genius, a vinyl or CD box set of Ornette Coleman’s two albums for Contemporary Records. The box is now discounted at multiple outlets and since Craft’s Acoustic Sounds series is reissuing the LPs individually, it’s still worth reviewing.Ornette Coleman, born and raised in Fort Worth, was controversial from the start. A working saxophonist (tenor, then a plastic alto after three men smashed his tenor sax following a show)... Read More
August 14th, 2023
Coltrane & Dolphy's First Outing The much-ballyhooed newly discovered '61 sets at the Village GateBy: Fred Kaplan
Every few years, it seems, someone discovers another stack of long-lost tapes from a long-forgotten John Coltrane session and puts them out on CD, LP, or both. The resulting albums garner lavish praise and sell very well, but, really, they’re deep disappointments, textbook cases of hype—the allure of the new, the unknown, the never-before-heard-until-now! The first of the recent excavations, in 2018, was Both Directions at Once, a 1963 date at Rudy Van Gelder’s... Read More
August 9th, 2023
The Art Ensemble of Chicago's Avant-Funk Masterpiece The long-vanished French soundtrack album is back, in vinyl onlyBy: Fred Kaplan
“Funky” is not a word routinely linked to the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the pioneering avant-garde jazz group of the mid-1960s and beyond whose music tends more toward the cryptic and tangled. But put the needle on “Theme de Yoyo,” the first track of their 1970 album, Les Stances à Sophie, and you’ll be dancing in your head and on your feet in no time.The album was produced as the soundtrack to a French film of that title, and “Theme de Yoyo”—which has vocals by the... Read More
August 4th, 2023
A Month Before "Kind of Blue" Miles' Guys Snuck Away While In Chicago To Record This hardly modalBy: Michael Fremer
In Chicago, February of 1959 while playing at The Sutherland Hotel as members of Miles Davis's now classic "Kind of Blue" sextet, the group, minus Miles assembled at Bill Putnam's Universal Recording Studio at 46 E. Walton Street and laid down this album led by Cannonball Adderley. It was only a month before "Kind of Blue" but there's nothing modal about this almost corny by comparison set of "chipper" tunes taken post-bop... Read More