It’s like play, like repartee: each voice or instrument stands up to do a poem. In this case, three poems. This is sax player José Lencastre’s new album “Anthropic Neglect” which features guitar (often used percussively with myriad attacks on the strings); a sax that stops, starts, repeats a motif, breathes and starts again; and... Continue Reading →
A deftly layered and tactile experience, the new CD by guitarist Ray Sandoval called “What is Now” embeds poetry and dreams into the listener. The track “Migration Suite” plays with the sounds of the ocean and animal utterances (but very skillfully and attractively), offering sounds both natural and unnatural à la bass clarinet which affixes... Continue Reading →
The new CD from Sophie Tassignon, “Mysteries Unfold,” has a potpourri of sounds dancing in many different corners of jazz: the cabaret-like “Don’t Be So Shy with Me” (a perfect lilt and bounce with a dash of cynicism), its echo-chambered voices in the bridge unexpectedly bringing a quick change of temperature and tempo. “Cum Dederit”... Continue Reading →
When you have a friend who devotes a CD to you, honoring your contribution to music, that’s respect and admiration. When that person asks you to compose something for the CD, that’s an awesome gesture. So it is with the new release called “Zigsaw: Music of Steve Lampert.” Just out earlier this month, the album... Continue Reading →
An ear for the political and social drives the band Told Americans. Their spoken word approach conveys the frustrations, laments and struggles of everyday life. Like “Traffic” – you feel precisely as if you are wedged in on the interstate, little brat of a kid kicking the back of your seat, cars suffocatingly surrounding you... Continue Reading →
Debbie Burke - jazz author 
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