September 2016
Cellar Live 020116
Format: CD
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By definition, improvised music lives in the moment, and jazz, the musical genre most closely associated with improvisation, is an art form obsessed with constant innovation. It is unusual for jazz to look backward, but two nostalgic trends -- both related to trumpeter Miles Davis -- broke with tradition and were surprisingly long-lived.
August 2016
Blue Note Records 002505102
Format: CD
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How you know guitarist Nels Cline might vary. You might know him as the leader of the archly named Nels Cline Singers -- a trio that includes no vocalists -- from his sonically expressive improvisational collaborations with a wide range of artists from Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore to action painter Norton Wisdom, or as a member of the rock band Wilco. In almost every setting, he is a disruptor: slashing shards of noise across a pleasant tonal environment here, cranking the volume there. Inspired by sources as diverse as Jimi Hendrix and Andrew Hill, Cline has extraordinarily open ears and a deep set of technical skills.
Concord 39803
Format: CD
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For centuries, some of the most important contributions to our understanding of social mores and manners have come not from historians, but from creative observers who have worked in various art forms. From Samuel Pepys to E.B. White, we have used the writings of people like these to go deeper into how life was experienced by those who lived through particular times.
June 2016
The Allman Brothers Band Recording Company 1116
Format: CD
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Few rock bands had the stylistic scope or instrumental prowess of the original Allman Brothers Band: guitarists Duane Allman and Dickey Betts, organist/vocalist Gregg Allman, bassist Berry Oakley, and drummers Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson. From the spring of 1969 to October, 1971, the band grew steadily from an energetic-but-raw group of disparate forces to a highly disciplined-yet-uninhibited band of improvisers.
May 2016
Nonesuch 554569
Format: CD
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While jazz has no shortage of solo performances, stemming from the European classical tradition of the virtuoso recital, it is primarily a collective music. Improvisation gains currency when one player takes inspiration from another, adding to what has already been played, while ensemble work is at the very core of what gives the music its power -- both in small groups and, most particularly, big bands.
April 2016
Resonance Records HCD-2014
Format: CD
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One of the few authentic things in Don Cheadle’s gangster-fantasy bio-pic of Miles Davis is the trumpeter’s insistence that jazz was, first and foremost, social music. In the years before, during and after World War II, in particular, jazz was the soundtrack of black American lives. Before the rise of urban blues and R&B in the ’50s, it was jazz that was played on commercial jukeboxes in bars, on record players at house parties, and by combos at live music venues. It was, quite literally, ubiquitous in the air, especially in the large, industrial centers. In Indianapolis, Wes Montgomery started strumming a four-string tenor guitar at the age of 12, and seven years later, in 1942 -- inspired by brilliant, young guitarist, Charlie Christian, who died around that time -- switched to a full-size electric guitar.
March 2016
Blue Note Records B002427702
Format: CD
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Veteran jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, who turns 78 on March 15, views himself as someone who stands at the crossroads of America’s folk musics: country, blues, R&B, and jazz. As quoted in California-based journalist Joe Woodard’s 2015 book, Charles Lloyd: A Wild, Blatant Truth, Lloyd believes that growing up in Memphis on the Mississippi River in the 1940s was “the right place, at the right time. There were great masters there.” Among those masters Lloyd played with were B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Ace, and contemporaries Phineas Newborn and Booker Little.
February 2016
ISO/Columbia 88875173862
Format: CD
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Any artist’s sudden and unexpected death alters our view of his or her final work -- whether it be Jimi Hendrix’s The Cry Of Love, Janis Joplin’s Pearl, or John Lennon’s Double Fantasy. No matter how hard we try, we can never truly divorce that final recording from thoughts of what went before or projections of what might have been yet to come.
January 2016
ECM 2478
Format: CD
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Reissues of early recordings from an established artist’s career are almost always instructive, and sometimes revelatory. While it is not unusual to gain a fresh perspective on the development of the artist’s music, it is much rarer to get insights into what factors influenced the musician’s personal growth.
December 2015
Concord 37886
Format: CD
Musical Performance
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Overall Enjoyment
Starting in the mid-1960s, blues-based guitarists began to supplant lead singers like Mick Jagger and Keith Relf as the dominant frontmen in rock music. Players like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page were suddenly thrust into the spotlight, and once Jimi Hendrix made the move from showy soul sideman to rock god there was no turning back. Even guitarists who could not sing -- Duane Allman comes to mind -- were promoted as solo artists.
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