Coming March 15: “Power in the Air” by Brian Charette represents album number 3 for his sextet. The NYC-based organist has amped up the wattage in songs like “Harlem Nocturne” – sassy, brassy and with a wicked drag (and an unexpected couple of punches from the flute); “Want” shows playful counterpoint with a fantastic layered... Continue Reading →
Sing a song of jazz titles From musicians near and farBig band, bebop, traditionalBring lyrics to where you are Ed Berger's photos lovingly placedIn luminous black & whiteAccompanied by free verse fromGloria Krolak from NPR, that's aight In her book from 2018, NPR host and author Gloria Krolak uses the photos of Ed Berger and... Continue Reading →
Writing and producing one track per week in quarantine has yielded, for composer/guitarist Stephen Godsall, a new CD coming next month that bubbles with optimism, swirls with color and sports unexpected changes. Totaling 18 tracks, the album “Atlantic Skies” is a potpourri of techno/New Age/jazz vibes that takes the listener on a discovery of his... Continue Reading →
Young trumpeter Giveton Gelin holds up hope and light in his 2019 debut album “True Design,” an album that has so much heart and an extraordinarily diversified palette of moods and vibes. While the track “The Interlude” presents an aloneness and a solitary state of thought through Gelin’s beautifully spare playing, his “Inner Perception” (which... Continue Reading →
Boris Kozlov has met, head-on, the gargantuan task of keeping a legacy alive while comfortably and ably expressing his own individuality. As the co-leader of the Mingus Big Band, originally formed by Charles Mingus’s widow Sue Graham Mingus after the bassist’s demise in 1979, his music and musical direction stand beautifully tall. The winner of... Continue Reading →
The mood, texture and grain of the 2019 film “Adrift in Soho” begs for music that’s complex and compelling. Composer Anthony Reynolds makes full use of jarring dissonance, shrieking, wailing strings, the beats of a terrified heart and the occasional lyrical lick to help tell the story of Soho, London in the 1950s. With its... Continue Reading →
I had no specific expectations of the book “Tonight at Noon: A Love Story” (DaCapo Press, 2003) other than it was going to be a wild ride with Charles Mingus and his wife. And so it was. The man was gifted yet tormented; breaking from norms of performing, writing, hearing and seeing, he discerned beyond... Continue Reading →
Slapping the bass gives an edgy intro to Rebecca Angel’s vocals in the new take on “For What It’s Worth,” a song that became a protest anthem of the 1960s and has become strangely relevant today. Angel was previously interviewed on this blog here. Her new single is preceded by the 2018 album “What We... Continue Reading →
Guitarist Giorgos Tabakis has invited bass clarinetist Rebecca Trescher to a musical exploration of tone and interval, shading and hue in the new CD “Dual Nature.” Some tracks feature them together, bobbing and weaving; others are standalone solos. The instrumentation is an exciting and fresh treat for the ear. The ability to create textures is... Continue Reading →
Debbie Burke - jazz author 
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