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Jason Keiser: Kind of Kenny
by Andrew Gilbert
Over the past decade San Jose guitarist Jason Keiser has carved out a sterling reputation as a bandleader whose musical passions range across North America's expansive soundscape, and this album extends his exploration into arrestingly lyrical territory. After highlighting Woody Shaw's treasure trove of intervallic leaping post-bop gems on 2023's Shaw's Groove, he turns his attention to another undersung trumpet maestro with Kind of Kenny, a deep dive into the ravishing music of Canadian composer Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014).
Continue ReadingJacqui Naylor: Treasures of the Heart
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Jacqui Naylor's Treasure of the Heart sends up fourteen highly unique jewels, with ten of those being original compositions from Naylor and spouse Art Khu and four classics, all offering a wide range of grooves from funk, jazz, and rock. Throughout the date, Naylor exhibits a healthy versatility with her vocal instrument and delivers a lyric interpretation that at times startles. Rodgers and Hart's well-recorded jazz standard, “I Didn't Know What Time It Was," launches things and ...
Continue ReadingTaj Mahal: Savoy
by Steve Yip
Folk/blues practitioner Taj Mahal's Savoy is to be savored. As one of the custodians of the blues, Mahal has long been a legend in his own time. This collection traverses a cultural-musical continuum in an indispensable residency in the annals of Black American music. The namesake of this album--the Savoy on Lenox Avenue in Harlem--was known as The World's Finest Ballroom and Home Of Happy Feet. In the pre-Civil Rights era, the North claimed formal equality, but segregation ...
Continue ReadingJason Keiser: Shaw's Groove
by Jack Bowers
The “Shaw" in guitarist Jason Keiser's album Shaw's Groove is the late great Woody Shaw, one of the more innovative and influential jazz trumpeters of the twentieth century. Even though he lived only forty-four years (he died in May 1989), Shaw was an important role model whose sweeping influence remains strong to this day, both as a player and composer. The first four songs on Shaw's Groove were written by Shaw himself, among the many he composed ...
Continue ReadingTaj Mahal: Savoy
by Dave Linn
Savoy, from Taj Mahal, is the latest entrant in the crowded field of pop music artists trying their hand at the fertile songbook of old big-band, swing-era standards. Unlike most, Mahal's roots show he's well suited to the task. He was born in Harlem in 1942. He grew up in a musical family, and his parents were both involved in the arts. His father was a jazz pianist and arranger, working with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Fletcher Henderson among ...
Continue ReadingDaggerboard & The Skipper: Daggerboard And the Skipper
by Dan McClenaghan
For those who think they can tell an album's sound by its cover, think again in the case of Daggerboard and The Skipper. That cover art seems to have come from the walls of an inner sanctum of a Pre-Columbian pyramid. So what kind of music will that be? It is hard to find information on this release. Daggerboard seems to consist of the workings of percussionist/songwriter Gregory Howe and trumpeter/flugelhornist/songwriter Erik Jekabson, of Throttle Elevator Music fame, ...
Continue ReadingRay Obiedo: Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2
by Richard J Salvucci
Sometimes it is difficult to banish the words of Ecclesiastes from your mind when listening to a recording: “There is no new thing under the Sun." While that may be true of music in particular--one builds on the past, just as in other fields--it is no good reason for not listening or for simple indifference. Gerald Wilson's “Viva Tirado" has been around since the 1970s, and Wilson himself has been quoted as being once surprised by hearing the El Chicano ...
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