WORTH A LISTEN
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I was pretty excited when I picked up The New Standard. I mean, talk about a dream team: Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, John Scofield, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, and Don Alias. It doesn’t get any better than that.
The challenge in a date like The New Standard comes in taking a batch of […]

WORTH A LISTEN
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Chick Corea is such a nice guy that sometimes I feel like a dick for criticising his music. On the insert for Change, he writes in his dedication: “To The Idealist, the Dreamer…To those who persist towards their goals of Betterment and Beauty…To those who truly Help, To the Artist in all […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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During the Brecker Brothers’ first incarnation, the band was all about merging jazz with funk and R&B. With The Return Of The Brecker Brothers, the brothers widened their net to include African pop forms and Brazilian music. If you want to hear what the Brecker Brothers might have sounded like if […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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I have a confession to make. I’ve been sleeping on Kenny Garrett. I first heard him in concert with the Five Peace Band back in March, and I was suitably impressed. He managed to hold his own with monsters like John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Vinnie Coliauta, and Christian McBride.
Naturally, when […]

WORTH A LISTEN
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Music On The Edge is a bit of a misnomer for this live release from some very talented musicians. That title implies that the music contained therein is uniformly new and innovative.
In some cases, that’s true, like Jim Beard’s arrangement of composer Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare For The Common Man, which has […]

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
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Dave Liebman started his career playing with people like John McLaughlin, Miles Davis and Elvin Jones. His first group that I know of was Open Sky, a trio with drummer Bob Moses and bassist Frank Tusa. Then Liebman went on to found Lookout Farm, with Richie Beirach, Don Alias, John Abercrombie, […]

DON’T BOTHER
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As much as I would like to, I can’t entirely dismiss Bireli Lagrene’s Standards.
First of all, there is the sheer virtuosity involved. Lagrene can play guitar very well, and of course Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen is one of the greats on the upright bass. Andre Ceccarelli is less impressive on drums, but […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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If Tales Of The Hudson was your first exposure to Michael Brecker, you might be excused for being impressed.
At the time of the recording, Brecker was already one of the tenor saxophone’s finest technicians. And look at the musicians he has with him! Pianist McCoy Tyner was a key component of […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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It’s taken a while for Meant To Be to grow on me.
For a while, the sections where Scofield solos seemed too abstract, since no one is outlining the structure of the tune or even dropping occasional harmonic hints. It’s a very free arranging style. In effect, everyone’s soloing at the same […]

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
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If Fourmost comes across as a little geriatric, there’s a reason: all of the players are senior citizens.
Alright, I’ll admit that’s not really fair. Many of the classic Blue Note organ dates were full of lazy renditions of tunes like Midnight Special, so Fourmost isn’t all that different in that […]