JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Omar Sosa is up to his old tricks on Free Roots, trying to cram the entire African diaspora into every tune. Amazingly, it doesn’t just sound like a freeway pileup, which is due to Sosa’s amazing skills as a pianist, composer, and arranger.
For example, on Travieso, hiphop collides with Latin, Afrocuban […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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I’ve written a lot about Eberhard Weber as a bandleader elsewhere on this site. Pretty much any of his work with reed player Charlie Mariano and keyboardist Rainer Bruninghaus is well worth owning, and Silent Feet is no exception.
All of this work is basically Eurojazz. It doesn’t have a lot of […]

WORTH A LISTEN
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I remember being completely stoked by the idea of this guitar trio back in the early 80’s. I even hitchhiked 80 miles from Gainesville, Florida to Ocala in order to catch one of their concerts. Paco De Lucia was a no-show because he was sick that day. I wasn’t impressed with the […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Normally, I wouldn’t include an album like Milton on this website. It’s a Brazilian pop album. All of the songs have lyrics and are sung by the great Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento.
But I have my reasons for including this release. Milton (released on the Verve label) includes improvisations by Herbie […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Hermeto’s debut album as a leader, Yogurt, was intriguing without a doubt, but it really doesn’t prepare you for the brilliance of his follow up, Slaves Mass (on the Collectables label).
The most striking composition is probably the title tune, which starts out with a rather strange form of percussion — Hermeto […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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The general critical consensus on Wayne Shorter is that he has been creatively fallow since his Weather Report days, and is only now beginnning to recapture the glory of his Blue Note years. That’s just nonsense. Critics simply weren’t able to follow Shorter’s innovations and were too lazy to put […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Identity is rather typical in some ways of Airto Moreira’s mid 70s work in general, and of the collaboration between American jazz artists and Brazilian musicians during the 70s in general.
Identity was produced by Herbie Hancock and benefits from the excellent work of Wayne Shorter on soprano sax and […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Talk about a highwire act without a net. Shakti With John McLaughlin (on the Columbia label) was recorded live at South Hampton College and was his first release with Shakti. Two out of the three compositions on this release are over 18 minutes long. There is absolutely […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Omar Sosa has to be one of the most restless pianists in all of jazz. In his early career, he made a point of including every point of the African diaspora in his recordings, sometimes in the same song. But on Mulatos (on Sosa’s own Ota Records label), it seems like […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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There are not that many opportunities to hear the great trombonist Raul De Souza in his heyday, and for that reason alone, Colors (on the Original Jazz Classics label) would be worth owning, but it also happens to be a very good album.
Much of De Souza’s stateside success was due to […]