WORTH A LISTEN
Rating:

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
Rating:

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 RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Rating:

Too often on recordings that attempt to fuse Brazilian rhythms with jazz, one or the other element tends to get shortchanged. Either the rhythms are overly simplistic, or the improvisations substitute scale running for substantive improv. To some extent, that’s the case with Samba Jazz In Black And White.
True, reed player […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
Rating:

Most of Thelonious Monk’s significant work was recorded fairly early in his career, so I was surprised to find out that Solo Monk dates from 1964.
Most of the tunes on this date are covers of pop tunes from the 30s and 40s. How Monk imbues these tunes with his personality gives […]

Rating:

I went to see the Realistic Orchestra on a lark, really. They were playing at Yerba Buena Gardens for free on a Saturday, and I happened to be in the area with my wife, shopping. I wasn’t even really planning to write a review, but I was fairly impressed.
The first thing that struck me […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
Rating:

You might think a release consisting of almost nothing but variations on the blues could get a little monotonous, but in the case of Coltrane Plays The Blues, it’s the opposite.
Coltrane finds a variety of ways to play the blues: major blues, minor blues, differences in tempo, instrumentation, and rhythmic approach. […]

WORTH A LISTEN
Rating:

In some ways, Bump is reminiscent of many other John Scofield dates. This was far from the first time he explored New Orleans funk, and it would not be the last.
The difference here is that, despite a fairly large cast of musicians (bassists Tony Scherr, Chris Wood, and David Livolsi; drummers Eric […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Rating:

Power To The People is one of those releases that tend to fall through the cracks. Like much of Joe Henderson’s solo work, it is not overtly innovative, but instead works through already established forms. It also lacks the simplicity and clarity that would endear it to the small jazz […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Rating:

When I got Bobby Broom’s new CD Plays For Monk in the mail, I was intrigued. As far as I know, he’s the only guitarist that’s done a date almost entirely made up of Monk compositions. And Broom was doing the date as a trio!
On the face of it, that’s pretty […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Rating:

It would be tempting but reductive to categorize The Infinite as Dave Douglas’ take on Miles Davis on the cusp of fusion, as fellow critic Dave Lynch does on allmusic.com. I understand the temptation. It’s always easier to talk about a recording if you have an overarching metaphor, a way […]