Music Reviews: CD

Several years ago, I described Sullivan Fortner’s piano style as “Erroll Garner channeled through Chico Marx.” Since then, his range has widened, his virtuosity deepened, his wit sharpened.On the opening (and title) track of his new trio album, Southern Nights, he begins with breezy strums of the strings inside the piano, follows with some syncopated sparkles on the keyboard, then angles into the song (written by his fellow New Orleansian Allen Toussaint) with a... Read More

As a record, Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music holds up just fine. But as an idea? It may be one of the most beautiful we ever had.The story is a familiar one, as far the American musical mythos is concerned: Back in 1962, at the flashpoint of the civil rights movement, Charles recorded 12 standbys originally by Hank Williams (“You Win Again,” “Hey, Good Lookin’,”) Don Gibson (“I Can’t Stop Loving You”), and other luminaries of the tradition.Six... Read More

Jason Palmer isn’t as well-known as he should be, perhaps because he’s lived and taught in Boston for the last 20 years or so, whereas jazz, to the extent it’s promoted at all, tends to be New York-centric. He’s a trumpeter at once fiery and smooth-toned, dexterous and contemplative, equally emotive and virtuosic with chromatic flurries and balladic whole notes.He's in high demand when he’s not teaching at Berklee and the New England Conservatory, having... Read More

This beautifully designed and annotated set appeals to seasoned classical collectors and newbies alike with its gripping performances of three of the master symphonist’s most compelling works in outstanding sound and video.  Amidst all the tinsel and seasonal levity, give this set serious consideration.

When it comes to classical music, brass instruments have experienced, or, to put it more precisely, endured, a long march towards respectability over the past half century or so. Brass instruments played an increasingly prominent role in orchestral works by Bruckner or Mahler, but they really were not vouchsafed much solo literature until the latter half of the twentieth century. It was the French virtuoso Maurice Andre who first wielded his piccolo trumpet during the... Read More

Until 1972, David Robert Jones’ career was a classic case of trial and flaw. After fronting various R&B groups in the mid-1960s with no success and avoiding confusion with the Monkees’ Davy Jones, he changed his last name to Bowie and embarked on a career under his new name. Testing various musical grounds to see what worked, his early output ranged from a music hall-tinged eponymous debut album to a novelty single about a laughing gnome. Bowie hit paydirt in 1969... Read More

Released as a companion to its Live and Let Die reissue, this limited edition, deluxe 2CD set explores every note composed by John Barry for his return to the series, whose sound he created two decades earlier.

This is the first of two recent releases from LaLaLand Records exploring lesser-known Bond scores from the 1970s and 1980s. First up, this limited edition, deluxe 2CD release of Live and Let Die (1973), which was the first Bond film not to be scored by John Barry, and the first to star Roger Moore.  While at the time of the film’s release many felt George Martin’s score was a pale shadow of Barry’s template, the passage of time has been kinder to this music, and there’s no doubting the power of Paul McCartney’s iconic theme song.  Time, therefore, to follow LaLaLand Records’ cue and dive deep into the origins of “the Bond sound” and how two of the Beatles team tackled this impossible assignment to reinvent Barry’s stylings for a new era and a new leading man.

My old friend Ken Kessler What's App'd me sounding more excited than I've heard him in years! The veteran U.K. based audio and watch journalist told me a U.K. label Roller Coaster Records had just released a CD reissue of The "Chirping" Crickets that used similar tech to what Giles Martin used to remix Beatles albums in improved stereo, but Ken said for some reason it worked much better on this old Crickets album that was recorded and released... Read More

Craft Recordings releases The Sound of Music soundtrack complete for the first time, including every piece of music used in the film and even some cues that were not. (Your editor feels it necessary to write to readers not at all interested in TSOM to please read film editor Paul Seydor's essay. It is filled with fascinating details and insight into film production and criticism. Don't miss it).

Ethan Iverson may be best known as the original pianist for The Bad Plus, a trio that made an improbably huge splash in the early 2000s by grafting jazz rhythms onto such pop and punk tunes as Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” Aphex Twin’s “Flim,” and Abba’s “Knowing Me Knowing You”—and doing it with energy, wit, virtuosity, and genuine cross-genre feel for idiom: no nudge-wink po-mo irony. The group’s drummer and bassist, Dave King and... Read More

Herbie Nichols, who died of leukemia in 1963 at the age of 44, was a jazz composer-pianist of vast talent, wit, and virtuosity, but little luck. He recorded just four albums (three for Blue Note, one for Bethlehem), none of which sold well; his music may have been at once too formalistic and too quirky for its time. He had a playful style, not unlike Thelonious Monk's, who was a friend and contemporary, though Nichols' sense of structure and harmony was... Read More

Yen Records encapsulated bubble-era Japan’s artistic experimentation at a mainstream-adjacent level, though some artists never took off. Among them was Tamao Koike, whose new CD TAMAO - Complete Yen Years documents her short-lived '80s attempt at techno-kayō stardom. Partially produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra, Koike's music deserves rediscovery.

Just in time for the holidays, A Lovesome Thing—pianist Geri Allen and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel playing duets at the Philharmonie de Paris on Sept. 5, 2012, for nearly an hour, five tunes, mainly standards, unrehearsed—is a welcome and ravishing balm.The two had played together just once before—the previous July, when Allen briefly sat in with Rosenwinkel’s quartet at the Jazz Standard—and never together as a duo. Yet they make a perfect fit, Allen’s lush chords,... Read More

Sullivan Fortner is best known as singer Cécile McLorin Salvant’s main pianist, but he was dazzling New York jazz aficionados for a few years before that gig materialized, and, like Salvant, he keeps getting better—more imaginative, more ambitious, more open to taking big risks. His latest, Solo Game (Artwork Records), is two very different albums in a single two-CD set. The first, Solo, is an acoustic-piano solo session, covering a wide array of jazz and pop... Read More

Darcy James Argue has evolved over the past 15 years, into one of our era’s great big-band composers and leaders, second only to Maria Schneider and, increasingly, a force worth taking on the same level of seriousness. His 4th and latest album, Dynamic Maximum Tension—his first in six years and his debut on the Nonesuch label—is his best to date: a work of stunning versatility and complexity, but thoroughly accessible, borderline passionate, for all its intricate maneuvers.

(This review originally appeared in Issue 5/6, Winter 1995/96. A 25th Anniversary double vinyl LP issued by Omnivore with new liner notes and three previously unissued outtakes is currently available—see clickthrough at page bottom).When I was a child, I had a middle-aged second cousin Sophie who lived in far away California. She came to visit one cold New York winter in the late 1950s, bearing crates of tissue wrapped oranges, and jellies and jams from a place with a... Read More

(This review originally appeared in Issue 7, Spring 1996.)It is at once comforting and depressing to hear a band of (relative) youngsters writing and performing songs, most of which could easily be dropped into a cassette tape compilation from the early 70s and segue way so smoothly you’d never know they were new. Since I choose comfort over depression every time, I’m enjoying the hell out of this set of alternative shitkicker music which gracefully slips and slides... Read More