Album Reviews

Review: Andrew Drury’s Content Provider

Andrew Drury’s Content Provider (CD) Self-titled (Soup & Sound, 2015) Andrew Drury brings the content, all of it, on Content Provider, a set of six densely constructed instrumental compositions (and an arrangement of Clifford Brown’s Daahoud) released in 2015 on his own Soup and Sound Recordings label. This is an album of in-your-face material: the

Review: Yoni Kretzmer 2-Bass Quartet – Book II (2015)

Yoni Kretzmer 2-Bass Quartet – Book II (OutNow  Recordings, 2015) Yoni Kretzmer – tenor saxophone Reuben Radding – double bass Sean Conly – double bass Mike Pride – drums The Yoni Kretzmer 2-Bass Quartet Book II CD is an impressive recording by Kretzmer in his series of CD releases on OutNow Recordings. An apt description

Review: Brian Drye’s Bizingas – Eggs Up High (2015)

Brian Drye’s Bizingas Eggs Up High (NCM East, 2015) Brooklyn NYC based Quartet Bizingas self-titled debut fused ArtRock sensibilities with bright, jazzy spirit to create a truly unique musical aesthetic. Centered around the rich and diverse compositions of trombonist Brian Drye, Bizingas ventured down a path few have traveled. The Follow up project Eggs Up

Review : David S. Ware – Birth Of A Being (1977/2015)

David S. Ware’s Apogee – Birth of a Being (AUM Fidelity, 2015 reissue) It’s mid-June, 2016. I’m in my 15-month-old child’s nursery and we are listening, both for the first time, to Birth of a Being, the 1977 debut of David S. Ware (in the collaborative trio Apogee with Cooper-Moore and Marc Edwards), exquisitely re-released

Review: Darius Jones Quartet – Le Bebe De Brigitte

Darius Jones Quartet Featuring Emilie Lesbros Le Bebe de Brigitte (Lost in Translation) Musicians: Darius Jones (alto sax) Matt Mitchell (piano, Rhodes) Sean Conly (bass) Ches Smith (drum set, percussion) Emilie Lesbros (voice, piano on track 6) Pascal Niggenkemper (bass on track 6) Track List: Two Worlds, One Soul (10:11) Chanteuse in Blue (9:01) Universal

Review : Pascal Niggenkemper – Talking Trash

Pascal Niggenkemper’s Le 7eme Continent Talking Trash (Clean Feed, 2016) Players like bassist-composer Pascal Niggenkemper exemplify the fact that, while there is undeniably a New York jazz scene, creative music in the boroughs is about so much more than just geography. While he now calls Paris home, Niggenkemper, who is of French-German descent and studied

Review : Tyshawn Sorey Double Trio – Inner Spectrum Of Variables

Drummer/Composer Tyshawn Sorey has made a significant impact on the improvised music scene for years. Spread across two CDs, his latest project The Inner Spectrum of Variables is a bold and ambitious piece of work that unravels throughout multiple movements, forging a working link between the worlds of composition and free improvisation. Toeing the line

Review : Earth Tongues Live At Happy Lucky No. 1, October 13

Earth Tongues, a trio consisting of Joe Moffett (trumpet, other objects), Dan Peck(tuba, bells, tape), and Carlo Costa (percussion, other objects) released their second record, the double-disc Ohio, at the art gallery Happy Lucky no. 1, on Thursday night. All three members of the band displayed their sensitivity as listeners, their imaginative abilities as improvisers,

Review : Moor Mother – Fetish Bones

Just a handful of times in any given generation, there is a record that screams out with such overwhelming force, such a level of unwavering vitality, a product of the organic creative process made necessary by the social context of the artistry, that it demands we all stop what we are doing and give it

Review : Darius Jones-Mathew Shipp Cosmic Lieder Duo – The Darkseid Recital

The Darkseid Recital AUM Fidelity (CD/DL) Personnel: Darius Jones (alto saxophone) Matthew Shipp (piano) Track Listing: Celestial Fountain 2,327,694,748 Granny Goodness Gardens of Yivaroth Lords of Woe Life Equation Sepulchre of Mandrakk Divine Engine Novu’s Final Gift Saxophonist Darius Jones and pianist Matthew Shipp shine in their second collaboration. They both deliver stellar performances on