March - 2020

Mar 28, 2020

MASA TAKUMI, Heritage

When first discovering a vibrant, visionary new artist, there’s always the tendency to connect his or her artistry to others who have captured our musical hearts in the past. When I started to listen to composer, pianist and drummer Masa Takumi’s multiple shades of amazing Domo Records debut Heritage, I immediately began connecting his multi-hued East meets West, funky contemporary jazz meets transcendent new age fusion to two of my favorite all-time (mostly) instrumental art

Jonathan Widran

Mar 26, 2020

NICHOLAS GUNN, Pacific Blue

A sonically expansive, ever evolving 27 years since making his debut back in his lead flute playing days with Afternoon in Sedona, Nicholas Gunn is releasing his extraordinary 20th album Pacific Blue into a very different world than he could have imagined existing while recording it. There is something beautiful about artists whose insight into the human condition and world affairs allows them to create works that meet the moment. Yet the multi-faceted keyboardist, composer a

MYRA MELFORD/ZEENA PARKINS/MIYA MASAOKA, MZM

Jonathan Widran

Mar 25, 2020

MYRA MELFORD/ZEENA PARKINS/MIYA MASAOKA, MZM

Sometimes the best pathways to understanding the intention and necessity for innovative artists to make experimental/avant-garde/purely improvisational free jazz can be found in the liner notes of an offbeat project like MZM, which combines the talents, offbeat proclivities and need for freewheeling, often cacophonous expression of veteran musicians Miya Masaoka (21 string koto), Zeena Parkins (electric harp, electronics) and Myra Melford (acoustic and prepared piano). Origin

Jonathan Widran

Mar 25, 2020

ROBERT DICK/JOELLE LEANDRE/MIYA MASAOKA

In his fascinating liner notes for Solar Wind, a trippy, offbeat and purely improvised avant-garde collection combining the collective history, intuitive talents and just about anything goes mindset of of Robert Dick (flutes, piccolo, voice), Joelle Leandre (contrabass, voice) and Miya Masaoka (koto, percussion), writer Mark Hannaford talks about the challenge of finding words to describe improvised music. He then proceeds to emote quite insightfully about a set of 15 way out

VANDERLEI PEREIRA AND BLINDFOLD TEST, Vision for Rhythm

Jonathan Widran

Mar 25, 2020

VANDERLEI PEREIRA AND BLINDFOLD TEST, Vision for Rhythm

Had versatile Brazilian drummer emerged from his vast decades long resume as a sideman with his majestic and melodically sweeping, rhythmically expansive debut Vision for Rhythm in 2016, it would have been a wondrous mood-setter for the Rio Olympics. But no matter, the infectious, alternately sultry/sexy and intensely buoyant and celebratory collection celebrates the joys of life just as well in a year we perhaps need it even more. Though he’s worked with the likes of Toots T

JAY WILLIE & JAMES MONTGOMERY, Cadillac Walk

Jonathan Widran

Mar 25, 2020

JAY WILLIE & JAMES MONTGOMERY, Cadillac Walk

Combining the dual rockin’ blues genius of veteran guitarist/slide guitarist/vocalist Jay Willie – longtime leader of the Connecticut based Jay Willie Blues Band – and legendary Detroit-born singer/harmonica master James Montgomery, Cadillac Walk is probably the most boisterous and energizing album you’ll hear all year. You can check Montgomery’s superstar credits if you like (tours with Aerosmith, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, et al) but what matters most is that Willie’s

Jonathan Widran

Mar 25, 2020

VITO DIETERLE, Anemone

A fixture on the NYC jazz scene for years as free-lancer/sideman and owner of the jazz bars, the Silver Lining and The Django, Chicago bred tenor saxophonist Vito Dieterle charts a fascinating creative course on Anemone, his debut album as a leader after a splendid duo album with pianist Joel Forrester on the Monk tribute Status Sphere. Long fascinated by the organ quartets of old, he leads an explosive quartet – featuring organist Ben Paterson, guitarist Kris Kaiser and drum

VITO DIETERLE/JOEL FORRESTER, Status Sphere

Jonathan Widran

Mar 25, 2020

VITO DIETERLE/JOEL FORRESTER, Status Sphere

Status Sphere, one of the more deeply imaginative, powerfully dynamic yet tenderly intimate Thelonious Monk tributes in recent memory, pairs two irrepressible staples of today’s NYC jazz scene. With over 1600 compositions to his credit, veteran pianist/composer Joel Forrester is well known for his association with the Microscopic Septet and for composing the theme to NPR’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross.” In addition to being a versatile, emotionally expressive tenor saxophonist

JOHN DI MARTINO, Passion Flower: The Music of Billy Strayhorn

Jonathan Widran

Mar 25, 2020

JOHN DI MARTINO, Passion Flower: The Music of Billy Strayhorn

Generally when jazz heads ponder the fruitful nearly three decade relationship between Duke Ellington and pianist, composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn, the evergreens “Lush Life” and the big band signature “Take the A Train” come to mind – so often that they have been covered hundreds of times. Working with his all-star quartet, veteran pianist John DiMartino finds amazingly unique ways to re-imagine these gems for his visionary collection Passion Flower: The Music of Billy

SCHAPIRO 17, New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

Jonathan Widran

Mar 25, 2020

SCHAPIRO 17, New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

Now over 60 years since its release, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is hailed as a masterpiece of not just jazz but all modern music. In addition to being the bestselling jazz album of all time, it ranked #1 on the BBC’s 50 greatest jazz albums poll in 2016 and #12 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 greatest albums of all time. The fact that it was once featured in VH1’s “100 Greatest Rock n Roll Albums” list seems unusual until it quickly hits you that Miles was jazz’s supreme reb

Jonathan Widran

Mar 24, 2020

HIROMI KANDA, Seven Elegant Ballads

In my overwhelmingly positive review of Japanese born vocal interpreter extraordinaire Hiromi Kanda’s 2013 collection Days of Yesterday, I praised her strong supple phrasing, balanced sense of playfulness and emotional intimacy and loving caress of the material. She brings all those exquisite qualities and even deeper personal touches to her lush and intimate, gorgeously rendered (and highly anticipated!) follow-up Seven Elegant Ballads. Produced by her husband, composer/prod

Jonathan Widran

Mar 24, 2020

SKINNY HIGHTOWER, Blue Moon

As dynamic and infectious as the hits that made composer, keyboardist and producer Skinny Hightower a force in urban jazz are, the deeply emotional, multi-faceted story behind his extraordinary new album Blue Moon lets us know that the artist himself was destined for bigger, funkier, more soul-satisfying realms. His fans can certainly delight in the vast, 70’s influenced fusion of R&B, funk, jazz, atmospheric Curtis Mayfield-Isaac Hayes sensuality and blaxploitation craziness

THE JW VIBE

Music That Sticks To My Soul

MASA TAKUMI, Heritage

NICHOLAS GUNN, Pacific Blue

MYRA MELFORD/ZEENA PARKINS/MIYA MASAOKA, MZM

ROBERT DICK/JOELLE LEANDRE/MIYA MASAOKA

VANDERLEI PEREIRA AND BLINDFOLD TEST, Vision for Rhythm

JAY WILLIE & JAMES MONTGOMERY, Cadillac Walk

VITO DIETERLE, Anemone

VITO DIETERLE/JOEL FORRESTER, Status Sphere

JOHN DI MARTINO, Passion Flower: The Music of Billy Strayhorn

SCHAPIRO 17, New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60

HIROMI KANDA, Seven Elegant Ballads

SKINNY HIGHTOWER, Blue Moon