JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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I have the suspicion that when bassist/composer Dave Holland was putting together his quintet, he was trying to achieve a format that would be possible to listen to passively while still being intellectually rigorous and allowing for exploration of new compositional and arranging concepts. In my opinion, he only half succeeds.
Holland’s […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Usually, I’m not terribly impressed by jazz vocalists, and Lea Delaria isn’t even one, strictly speaking. She makes her living as a lesbian comic and cabaret star.
So why am I even writing about her CD Double Standards? Well, Double Standards consists of covers of modern pop songs, which actually doesn’t sound […]

WORTH A LISTEN
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On Day Is Done, Brad Mehldau pushes his penchant for intellectualizing jazz to the limit and beyond.
Day Is Done mostly (thank God) consists of covers. Once again, Mehldau shows his veneration for the Beatles and Radiohead.
His cover of Knives Out keeps the spirit of the original, but is far more frantic. Jeff […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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On Strange Liberation, Dave Douglas tackles one of the toughest problems in modern music — how to make the best use of guitarist Bill Frisell. The answer: don’t give him a lot of room to improvise in, unless you’re talking about impressionistic fills.
For example, on the title cut, Frisell is allowed […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Lift begins audaciously enough. The first minute of the date is an unaccompanied saxophone solo by Chris Potter in which he outlines the form of the tune he’s going to play, even while his improvisation flirts with polyphony.
To up the ante, Lift is a live date, recorded at the Village Vanguard […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Sadly, Pilgrimage was Michael Brecker’s swan song before he succumbed to a rare form of cancer. He was very sick when he recorded Pilgrimage, but you would never know it.
In fact, Pilgrimage (on the Heads Up label) represents the flowering of a new phase in Brecker’s playing, which makes his death […]

WORTH A LISTEN
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I, for one, was looking forward to listening to Universal Syncopations. Post Weather Report, I have found Miroslav Vitous’ recorded work to be extremely disappointing, but on Universal Syncopations he is joined by several players that he’s produced some of his best work with. I’m speaking of guitarist […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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In order to appreciate Wide Angles, you have to approach it the right way. Brecker is not playing small combo jazz, in which you would expect him to interact extensively with the other musicians, such as violinst Mark Feldman. Wide Angles (issued on the Verve label) is a date like the […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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It’s kind of funny to hear an CD of soul jazz covers of Beck tunes. I think maybe that’s the point.
Oddly enough, Beck’s tunes turn out to be pretty well suited to a jazz organ trio format. Lonnie Smith (organ) and Doug Munro (guitar) do a good […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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4 Generations of Miles (on the Chesky Records label) is just what it sounds like. Miles had a very long career, spanning the 40s to the 90s. I don’t know if it was a deliberate choice from the start or they decided on the name of the album after the fact, […]