My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in The New York City Jazz Record, July 2014: Oran Etkin, Gathering Light (Motéma) Rob Garcia 4, The Passion of Color (BJU) Frank Lacy & The Smalls Legacy Band, Live at Smalls (SmallsLive) Mark Alban Lotz, Solo Flutes (LopLop) Ulf Wakenius, Momento Magico (ACT) Mark Weinstein, Latin Jazz Underground (Zoho)
From the December 2013 issue of The New York City Jazz Record. — When cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and his sextet finished their first set at the Jazz Gallery (November 9th), someone from the venue reached up to put a delicate framed photograph on the wall. “Did we knock that down?” Bynum joked, but the thought was plausible: his band rose
From the May 2013 issue of The New York City Jazz Record: — When trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Angelica Sanchez played duo at Greenwich House Music School (April 6), there were zones of deep concentration and silence, but also an outburst or two from car horns on the small West Village street just outside. Smith’s horn, too, shattered the
Happy New Year again! From the January 2013 issue of The New York City Jazz Record: — As a student of Lennie Tristano and a noted colleague of Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh, tenor saxophonist Ted Brown provides a living link to the Tristano school — an intriguing area in jazz history, somewhere in the interstices between bop and “cool.”
From the December 2012 issue of The New York City Jazz Record. — Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt’s quintet, arguably one of the strongest working bands in jazz, has held together long enough to record four albums: November, Men of Honor, The Talented Mr. Pelt and this year’s Soul. There were new faces onstage, however, when Pelt arrived for a special birthday
From the November 2012 issue of The New York City Jazz Record. — An announcer at Town Hall (Oct. 12) erred when he introduced the night’s marquee act as the Pat Metheny Group. It was in fact the Pat Metheny Unity Band, with Chris Potter on reeds, Ben Williams on upright bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums. Winding down a
The following post is one of many being featured in the Jazz Journalists Association’s 2012 Jazz Day Blogathon, with a focus on jazz in local communities. Sometimes I tell friends that a key benefit of living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is the ease of subway travel. A couple of blocks to the 1-2-3 train and I can zip down to
In the July 2011 issue of The New York City Jazz Record: — On Miles Okazaki’s first two recordings, Mirror (2005) and Generations (2009), the leader’s guitar wasn’t the main focus. Rather, it was part of a larger ensemble fabric woven by three saxophones, bass and drums, even vocals on the latter disc. Premiering a third volume of original music, “Figurations,”