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 →
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 →
Music is not just an accompaniment in film or TV; it’s another voice that tells the story. The whirlwind career of John Beasley, who arranged and conducted the original music for the movie “Let Them All Talk” and countless other projects, is proof that music is its own borderless and fascinating language. Being attuned (literally)... Continue Reading →
In his 2019 breakout debut “Fulfillment,” multi-instrumentalist Zac Zinger explores an impressive breadth of musical instrumentation. Without exception, all the tracks feature a sonic exploration where he whips, caresses, attacks and bends notes with excellent accompaniment (pianist Kana Dehara, bassist Adam Neely and many others). Zinger is as much at home in creating melody with... Continue Reading →
The new CD by Agnar Már Magnusson riffs off the Icelandic folk songs that have formed the leader’s musical essence. There’s an air of suspense and a depth to the title track “Mor” that plays like a turning point in life. A pulled-back tempo and sluggish brushes with a solemn bass line keep the listener... Continue Reading →
The fussy ligature for today’s sax and clarinet musicians has had its day in the sun. It looks like a fairly obvious solution, but a ring-style ligature that hugs the reed to the mouthpiece is looking to replace the traditional knobbed metal fixture. Newly launched, the Gen Sax mouthpiece was devised by sax player Gen... Continue Reading →
