August 17th, 2025
The Making of Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left Is a Musical Tale Worth Telling (amended 8/20/2025) a rare worthwhile "completist" type box setBy: Michael Fremer
Unlike most "completest" or multi-disc sets containing every snippet of recorded tape that you might listen to once out of curiosity and never again revisit, this thoughtfully curated set covering just Nick Drake's debut album is one that bears repeated listening. It's been on the turntable almost constantly since it arrived shortly after publishing the review of Brad Mehldau's Elliott Smith tribute Ride Into the Sun in which the pianist... Read More
August 12th, 2025
Brad Mehldau's Album About "Visionary Depressives" Offers Inspiration and Solace Plays the music of Elliott SmithBy: Michael Fremer
One needn't be an Elliott Smith fan or even know who he was to appreciate Brad Mehldau's rich musical examination of emotional light and darkness using the late singer/songwriter's creativity as a guide to understanding "visionary depressives" generally, and specifically Smith and his often sad and dark, but simultaneously uplifting music. Smith fans are legion, intense, and like Nick Drake, another "visionary depressive", even in... Read More
June 18th, 2024
Composer/Bassist Stephan Crump Contemplates Water From the Mississippi to the Gowanus Canal transcribing his musical thoughts for strings, horns and vibraphoneBy: Michael Fremer
Musicians from Handel to Jackson Browne to Philip Glass to The Beach Boys, to name but a few, have had water on their minds, which is not the same as having water on the brain. True, Glass only got as far as the beach, but that's close enough. Add bassist/composer Stephan Crump to the list. He's recorded two albums with the Rosetta Trio, an unusual grouping of bass and two guitars. Here, he's composed a sixty seven minute long suite for an... Read More
May 3rd, 2023
"Tár"- Music From and Inspired By The Motion Picture Hildur Guðnadóttir and Todd Field assemble an interesting sonic companion to their 2022 arthouse sensationBy: Michael Johnson
Back in 2014 when I was an undergraduate student at the Manhattan School of Music, I remember the Jazz department in a perpetual uproar over the release of the film Whiplash. It seems every Jazz musician I knew had something to say about that movie, from praise to condemnation, from astonishment at what it got right, to a laundry list of everything it got wrong (it didn’t help that supposedly the fictional “Schaefer Conservatory” was based on our own institution).... Read More
January 2nd, 2023
A Musically Satisfying Mendelssohn Octet in E Flat Major Demo Disc From Chasing the Dragon lets you compare analog vs. digital, 33 1/3 vs, 45, 1/2 speed to normal, tube vs. transistor micsBy: Michael Fremer
Mendelssohn completed his Octet in E Flat Major when he was 16 years old. Good thing he started composing brilliant pieces while young because he was dead at 38. After completing the piece, dedicated to his violin teacher Eduard Rietz, Mendelssohn gave him the score as a birthday present on October 17, 1825. Rietz copied out all of the parts and it was quickly performed in an informal family gathering. Rietz lived an even shorter life. Tuberculosis got him at age 30.... Read More
September 16th, 2022
Rachel's' 'Music For Egon Schiele' Floats Above Cliche From the archives: You’ll feel this the first play and you’ll play it repeatedlyBy: Michael Fremer
(This review originally appeared in Issue 7, Spring 1996.)Rachel’s’ 1995 release Handwriting LP (Quarterstick 30 LP) is on my top 10 of ‘95 list and this enchanting record may end up on the ‘96 list. The music here was composed by pianist Rachel Grimes for a dance and theater piece based on the life of turn of the century Viennese painter Egon Schiele.The stage work was written and directed by Stephan Mazurek for Chicago’s Itinerant Theater Guild, which he heads. The... Read More