- Details
- CD music
March 2022
Melissa Aldana: 12 Stars
Blue Note Records B0034596-02
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
CD Music
- Details
- CD music
December 2021
Tangerine Records TRC-2107
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Let’s begin with a quiz: There are 99 individual performances on this extensive six-disc overview of singer-pianist Ray Charles’s career. How many of the songs do you think he composed?
- Details
- CD music
October 2021
Gearbox Records 1571CD
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
If you followed popular music in the late ’60s and early ’70s, you likely remember the hype surrounding so-called supergroups. Bands like Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were touted as truly special things by the rock media.
August 2021
Blue Note B096C185JM
Format: 8 CDs
Musical Performance
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Overall Enjoyment
Like me, you probably have a few recordings you’ve played so many times you know every note, every nuance.
July 2021
BAG Production BAG018
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
I credit my father for indoctrinating me with a love for the clarinet. As a young man, long before my time, he immersed himself in the music of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw the way I would later cleave to Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman. And before either of those guitarists were making records, my father was filling my ears every Sunday morning with the sounds of Goodman, Shaw, Jimmy Dorsey, Woody Herman, and others who had made the clarinet the equivalent of the Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul in his day.
June 2021
Modern Recordings
Format: CD
Musical Performance
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Overall Enjoyment
In a less-fragmented musical landscape, composer-arranger Vince Mendoza might be a household name on the scale of Burt Bacharach or Henry Mancini. After all, the 59-year-old has won six Grammy Awards (and been nominated for a total of 34) and worked with stars like Björk, Elvis Costello, Sting, and Joni Mitchell. As it is, Mendoza’s reputation is largely confined to the jazz community, where he’s made his name by furthering so-called “third stream” music with the Metropole Orchestra and soloists like trumpeter Randy Brecker.
April 2021
ECM 2702
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
I’ve never completely bought into the idea of a distinctive “ECM Records sound,” by which is meant an austere, spacious, dry soundstage developed by label head Manfred Eicher for the artists he records. For one thing, the ECM catalog is far too broad, and the studios and engineers they employ far too diverse, for there to be any such uniformity. Another argument against the concept is that Eicher is too much a believer in capturing the true nature of artists to impose a soundstage on anyone. That’s not to say that he isn’t known for imposing his opinions on his artists, but they are more about artistry itself and not sonic aesthetics.
March 2021
Intakt 354
Format: CD
Musical Performance
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Overall Enjoyment
There’s a truism in music that well-trained classical musicians can’t improvise or swing enough to play jazz, and that jazz musicians who read well can perform the classics but can’t sound authentic playing folk music like country or blues. It’s not really a knock against musicians; you wouldn’t want a brain surgeon to replace your hip, either. The fact is, the deeper you go into a specialty, the more constrained you are.
February 2021
Edition EDN1168
Format: CD
Musical Performance
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Overall Enjoyment
If history tells us anything about what we’ve all been living through in the past year, it’s safe to predict that millions of words will be written about the lasting effects the pandemic and our various forms of isolation will have on how we live. One of the most thought-provoking observations I’ve heard directly came from the gifted young jazz pianist Christian Sands.
January 2021
Resonance 2048
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Instrumental virtuosity can be a mixed blessing, even if some of us would put it in the category of “nice problem to have.”
- The Nels Cline Singers' "Share the Wealth" and Dave Douglas's "Marching Music"
- Cindy Blackman Santana: "Give the Drummer Some"
- Ron Miles: “Rainbow Sign”
- Matt Wilson Quartet: "Hug!"
- Ran Blake & Andrew Rathbun: "Northern Noir"
- John Scofield: "Swallow Tales"
- Kandace Springs: "The Women Who Raised Me"
- Gordon Grdina’s Nomad Trio: "Gordon Grdina’s Nomad Trio"
- Jimi Hendrix: "Songs for Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts"
- Keith Jarrett: "Munich 2016"
- Bruce Cockburn: "Crowing Ignites"
- Bill Frisell: "Harmony"
- Bruce Springsteen: "Western Stars"
- Various Artists: "Jazz Fest: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival"
- Michael Gregory Jackson Clarity Quartet: "WHENUFINDITUWILLKNOW"
- Van Morrison: "The Healing Game (Deluxe Edition)"
- Jeanne Lee & Ran Blake: "The Newest Sound You Never Heard"
- Joe Lovano: "Trio Tapestry"
- Eric Dolphy: "Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions"
- Ingrid Jensen and Steve Treseler: "Invisible Sounds: For Kenny Wheeler"
- Rudy Royston: "Flatbed Buggy"
- The Band: "Music from Big Pink (50th Anniversary Edition)"
- Mark Turner and Ethan Iverson: "Temporary Kings"
- Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore: "Downey to Lubbock"
- Willie Nelson: "Last Man Standing"
- Miles Davis & John Coltrane: "The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol.6"
- Jimi Hendrix: "Both Sides of the Sky"
- Stephane Wrembel: "The Django Experiment III"
- Joe Satriani: "What Happens Next"
- Mavis Staples: "If All I Was Was Black"
- ECV: "Sticks and Stones"
- Living Colour: "Shade"
- Gregg Allman: "Southern Blood"
- Vijay Iyer Sextet: "Far from Over"
- Randall Bramblett: "Juke Joint at the Edge of the World"
- Steve Coleman's Natal Eclipse: "Morphogenesis"
- Valerie June: "The Order of Time"
- Delbert McClinton & Self-Made Men: "Prick of the Litter"
- Brian Eno: "Reflection"
- BassDrumBone: "The Long Road"
- Keith Jarrett: "A Multitude of Angels"
- Norah Jones: "Day Breaks"
- Metalwood: "Twenty"
- Nels Cline: "Lovers"
- Paul Simon: "Stranger to Stranger"
- The Allman Brothers Band: "Live from A&R Studios, New York, August 26, 1971"
- Pat Metheny: "The Unity Sessions"
- Wes Montgomery: "In the Beginning"
- Charles Lloyd & the Marvels: "I Long to See You"
- David Bowie: "Blackstar"
- John Abercrombie: "The First Quartet"
- Billy Gibbons and the BFGs: "Perfectamundo"
- Keith Richards: "Crosseyed Heart"
- Blue Buddha: "Blue Buddha"; Dave Douglas Quintet: "Brazen Heart"
- Jason Isbell: "Something More Than Free"
- Ryan Adams: "Ten Songs from Live at Carnegie Hall"
- Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell: "The Traveling Kind"
- Laura Marling: "Short Movie"
- Ted Kooshian: "Clowns Will Be Arriving"
- Suzie LeBlanc: "La Veillée de Noël"
- The Villains: "A Little Something for the Pain"
- Henry Mancini: "Music for Peter Gunn"
- Barb Jungr: "Hard Rain: The Songs of Bob Dylan & Leonard Cohen"
- Jeremy Fox: "With Love"
- Will Kimbrough: "Sideshow Love"
- A.J. Croce: "Twelve Tales"
- The Iveys: "Jenna's Song"
- The Dave Miller Trio with Rebecca DuMaine: "Better Than Anything"
- Bob Dorough: "Eulalia"
- Charlotte de Rothschild and Danielle Perrett: "Christmas Lullabies"
- Tchaikovsky/Duke Ellington-Billy Strayhorn: "Nutcracker Suites"
- Tianna Hall and Chris Cortez: "Noel"
- Tim Warfield: "Tim Warfield’s Jazzy Christmas"
- Gina Kronstadt: "Come Over"
- The Swingle Singers: "Weather to Fly"
- Tierney Sutton: "After Blue"
- Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler: "West Coast Cool"
- Lorraine Feather: "Attachments"
- Lyn Stanley: "Lost in Romance"
- Randi Tytingvåg: "Lights Out"
- Vincent Cross: "A Town Called Normal"
- Nancy Harms: "Dreams in Apartments"
- Abigail Riccards: "Every Little Star"
- George Shearing & Don Thompson: "George Shearing at Home"
- Matthew Morrison: "Where It All Began"
- Thisbe Vos: "Under Your Spell"
- Mustered Courage: "Powerlines"
- Denise King & Olivier Hutman: "Give Me The High Sign"
- Thomas Gansch and Georg Breinschmid: "Gansch & Breinschmid Live"
- Ben Sidran: "Don’t Cry for No Hipster"
- Raquel Bitton: "Rhythm of the Heart"
- Frank Vignola & Vinny Raniolo: "Melody Magic"
- Laila Salins: "Elevator into the Sky"
- Tim Mahoney Band: "Shine Through"
- The Summarily Dismissed: "To Each!"
- Will Scruggs Jazz Fellowship: "Song of Simeon: A Christmas Journey"
- Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, Conductor: "Horns for the Holidays"
- Jacqui Sutton: "Notes from the Frontier: A Musical Journey"
- Barluath: "Source"
- Letizia Gambi: "Introducing Letizia Gambi"
- Fiona Apple: "The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do"
- Susie Arioli: "All the Way"
- Georg Breinschmid: "Fire"
- Hiroe Sekine: "After the Rainfall"
- Jamie Ousley: "A Sea of Voices"
- Bill Toms: "Memphis"
- The SSJ All-Stars: "From California With Love"
- Dale Ann Bradley: "Somewhere South of Crazy"
- Duda Lucena Quartet: "Live"
- Stevie Nicks: "In Your Dreams"
- Megan Slankard: "A Token of the Wreckage"
- Take 6: "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"
- "Christmas with The Washington Chorus"
- Esperanza Spalding: "Chamber Music Society"
- John Escreet: "Don't Fight the Inevitable"
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