My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in The New York City Jazz Record, June 2014: Jeff Denson & Joshua White, I’ll Fly Away (pfMENTUM) John Ellis & Andy Bragen, MOBRO (Parade Light) Orrin Evans’ Captain Black Big Band, Mother’s Touch (Posi-Tone) Ideal Bread, Beating the Teens: Songs of Steve Lacy (Cuneiform) Anne Mette Iversen’s Double Life, So Many Roads
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in The New York City Jazz Record, May 2014: The Bad Plus, The Rite of Spring (Sony Masterworks) Amy Cervini, Jazz Country (Anzic) Brian Charette, Square One (Posi-Tone) Kris Davis Trio, Waiting for You to Grow (Clean Feed) Rufus Reid, Quiet Pride: The Elizabeth Catlett Project (Motéma) Matt Slocum, Black Elk’s Dream (Chandra)
This review appears in the April 2014 issue of The New York City Jazz Record. — Dan Weiss Fourteen (Pi) By David R. Adler Expanding on his trio output and his marvelous tabla-inspired albums for solo drum set, drummer Dan Weiss ventures into large-scale composition with the ambitious Fourteen. The disc’s seven tracks run together without pause, and though the ensemble
From the April 2014 issue of The New York City Jazz Record. — The clarinet looms large in Chris Speed’s work, though he spent the first two nights of his residency at the Stone solely on tenor saxophone. In the last of four trio sets with bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Dave King (Mar. 12), Speed focused mainly on music from
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in The New York City Jazz Record, April 2014: Diego Barber & Craig Taborn, Tales (Sunnyside) Digital Primitives, Lipsomuch (Hopscotch) Billy Hart Quartet, One Is the Other (ECM) Tom Rainey, Obbligato (Intakt) Pete Robbins, Pyramid (Hate Laugh) Ton Trio II, On and On (Singlespeed)
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in The New York City Jazz Record, March 2014: Steve Cardenas, Melody in a Dream (Sunnyside) Eli Degibri, Twelve (Plus Loin) Jozef Dumoulin, A Fender Rhodes Solo (BEE Jazz) Vijay Iyer, Mutations (ECM) Mehliana, Taming the Dragon (Nonesuch) Catherine Russell, Bring It Back (Jazz Village)
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in The New York City Jazz Record, February 2014: Scott Feiner & Pandeiro Jazz, A View from Below (s/r) Mary Halvorson/Michael Formanek/Tomas Fujiwara, Thumbscrew (Cuneiform) Jeremy Pelt, Face Forward, Jeremy (HighNote) Danilo Pérez, Panama 500 (Mack Avenue) Brandon Ross & Stomu Takeishi, Revealing Essence (Sunnyside) Helen Sung, Anthem for a New Day (Concord)
My feature article on drummer-composer-bandleader Gerald Cleaver ran in the November 2013 issue of JazzTimes — the link to the online excerpt is here. I also wrote a concluding section that didn’t make it into the magazine and wanted to share it for posterity. See below. — [Gerald] Cleaver debuted as a leader in 2001 with the moody Adjust,