Music Reviews: Jazz

In Greenwich Village, directly across from The Red Lion on Bleecker Street, an unremarkable mixed-use building conceals an extraordinary legacy.From 1964 to 1970, the basement of the defunct Garrick Theatre housed the Café Au Go Go — a pivotal New York club that welcomed legends ranging from Jimi Hendrix and B.B. King to the Grateful Dead. It opened with a bang: in its first year, comedic groundbreaker Lenny Bruce was arrested by undercover police after a performance... Read More

To Nick Finzer, the pioneering trombonist J.J. Johnson is often taken for granted. A standout among the new generation of trombonists, Finzer released Legacy — a full-album tribute to his hero, last year — “He’s one of those figures where people know and are familiar with his name,” he told me. “But when you start to dig a little deeper below the surface, people don’t realize how transformative he was.”Transformative indeed: in retrieving the trombone from its... Read More

Dexter Gordon was a striking figure—6’6” (one of his albums was called Long Tall Dexter), with a dry wit, a voice as foggily husky as his tenor saxophone tone, and (as an iconic photo taken by Herman Leonard reveals), lungs capacious enough to hold what looks like an entire cigarette’s worth of smoke in one breath. (This last trademark-feature led to his death from emphysema in 1990 at age 67.) In his last decade, Gordon became a true star, owing to a celebrated... Read More

The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, with Tommy Flanagan on piano and brothers Percy and Albert Heath on bass and drums, was the album that introduced electric guitarist John Leslie (Wes) Montgomery to the jazz world. It was recorded at Reeves Sound Studios in New York City on January 26 and 28 in 1960, when he was 35 years old. The album is now considered by many fans and critics to be the pinnacle of his recorded studio work, and it has influenced everyone... Read More

This is a solo jazz guitar album by one of the all-time best. If you’ve found your way here, it would be difficult to not like the scenery. But, you buy the ticket; you take the ride. As a result, some casual listeners may feel like they merely transacted with Joe. However, most will see this as a true gift. The name and the title tell you everything you need to know: Joe was a master and this, his tenth album and a first for Pablo Records in 1973, finds him at the... Read More

Scandinavians playing Dixieland/trad jazz is not my idea of a great musical treat—I don't care how well it's recorded and that's why though I've got a copy of the audiophile classic Jazz at the Pawn Shop and concede that it is among the greatest sounding jazz recordings ever, I can't remember that last time I listened to it.This record from Swing' Gate is something else, though it too treads in trad jazz land, because its leader, pianist... Read More

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

On January 15, 1959, when John Coltrane recorded the album Bags & Trane at Atlantic Studios in New York City with Milt Jackson, he was nearly at the end of the sideman-apprentice stage of his career. For two years, he had been playing with the Miles Davis Quintet/Sextet, one of the most successful groups in jazz. His time with Miles had been controversial. Part of jazz's audience and its critical establishment were never happy with the innovative nature of... 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

The trio of pianist Bill Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian is one of the most influential in jazz, yet the group laid down just three recording sessions over an 18-month period from December 1959 till June 1961--two studio sets (which formed two separate albums, Portrait in Jazz and Explorations) and one live date (spread out over two albums, Waltz for Debby and Sunday Afternoon at the Village Vanguard). The live albums, which rank as the best... Read More

Imagine a young Miles Davis fan's excitement back in 1973 spying a new compilation titled BASIC MILES The Classic Performances of Miles Davis (C32025) only to find that it was a seemingly haphazardly chosen set of tracks, and worse, that the asterisked ones had been "Electronically Re-Recorded to Simulate Stereo". But reading the discography on the jacket before putting it back in the bin, the second track "Stella By Starlight" listed the... Read More

Impex Records releases a new 1step, 45-rpm remastering of Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra, one of Sinatra's most important albums yet one that is often neglected despite the fact that it occupies a watershed place in his development as a singer and recording artist.

The years after the liberation of France from German occupation in August 1944 were not easy ones for the great guitarist Django Reinhardt. Somehow, during the occupation, he had managed to remain in France and continue to play professionally with great success and even record while hundreds of thousands of fellow members of the Romany ethnic group were murdered by the Nazis.After the war, he and violinist Stephane Grapelli, on several occasions, the last in 1948, had... Read More

When jazz aficionados see the phrases Miles Davis and Prestige Recordings in the same sentence, they think of the “marathon sessions” of 1956, where the trumpeter and his quintet (known in retrospect as his 1st Great Quintet: John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones) blazed through four albums’ worth of material (released over the next few years as Relaxin’, Steamin’, Workin’, and Cookin’) in just two days (May 11 and October 26), to complete... Read More

David Bowie recorded Station to Station—one of his greatest records IMO—at Cherokee Studios sometime in 1975 the same year as this Basie, Bellson, Brown album was put to tape in the same place. Bowie was in mid-career greatness, the jazz masters were clearly playing prime time but not at peak musical creativity, nor, to be honest, were most jazz fanatics paying much attention. Norman Granz started the label to give these greats an outlet, almost as a tribute space.... Read More

Bill Evans in Norway is a double album with a never before heard recording of an excellent 1970 concert from the Kongsberg Jazz festival featuring the Evans trio with bassist Eddie Gómez and drummer Marty Morell.

You needn't read the liner notes to feel from where drummer/composer Jacob Wendt draws his inspiration. The front cover photo and art direction offer a hint. The back cover does not, but drop the stylus on the title track opener and you'll hear Rudy's classic Blue Note stereo spread and feel Horace Silverness of it. The "Sidewinder"-ness of the follow up tune, "New Groove" is even more obvious, but on neither tune nor on any of... Read More

1957 was a landmark year for Thelonious Monk, possibly the most overtly original pianist in jazz history. He started playing in New York nightclubs again for the first time in six years, owing to the return of his cabaret card (essential for the city’s musicians back then), which had been suspended due to a drug charge. He recruited John Coltrane, who brought a thrilling new timbre to his band. And he recorded Monk’s Music, one of his most splendid albums—a brash... Read More

Bassist-composer Ben Wolfe is one of those “musicians’ musicians,” little known even among aficionados but a staple on the New York scene, adept at jazz and classical, rarely straying from the straight-ahead, but carving melodic lines and harmonic colors well outside conventional boundaries. His latest album, his 11th as a leader, is called The Understated (on his own Resident Arts Records label), and that’s one fair description of the music. Of its 10 tracks, all... Read More