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April 2023

GoGo Penguin: Everything Is Going to Be OK

XXIM Records
Format: 24-bit/48kHz WAV download

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GoGo Penguin’s new album, Everything Is Going to Be OK, arrived April 14 on CD, LP, and download, about nine months after the band’s EP Between Two Waves was released. Like that EP—the band's first record since moving to Sony’s XXIM Records—the LP features the band’s new drummer, Jon Scott, and integrates the occasional synthesizer in the mix. The trio has used studio technology to alter and process its sound in the past, but now it has embraced electronic keyboards to help it move in some new directions.

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March 2023

Ralph Towner: “At First Light”

ECM Records / Universal Music
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV download

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Ralph Alessi Quartet: “It’s Always Now”

ECM Records / Universal Music
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV download

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Although ECM Records has released its share of music by European jazz musicians, the label has also given exposure to American musicians since it was established by Manfred Eicher in 1969. The label’s first release was pianist Mal Waldron’s Free at Last (1970). Keith Jarrett’s solo piano recordings for the label increased his popularity and ensured the label’s financial viability, and his Standards Trio recordings with ECM reaffirmed his place in the jazz pantheon. Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie, Charles Lloyd, and Peter Erskine all made fine recordings for ECM.

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January 2023

Curation Records
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC download

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Uni Boys is a rock’n’roll quartet from Southern California whose crunchy, guitar-based power pop combines sophisticated songwriting with garage-band edginess. The group recorded two DIY albums that gained a following and impressed Los Angeles label Curation Records, which intended to give those recordings an official release. The group instead persuaded the label to release an album of new recordings, and Do It All Next Week hit streaming services a couple of months ago. Vinyl and CD releases will follow this month.

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November 2022

Out of Your Head Records OOYH 017
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV download

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Indigenous culture of all forms is gaining prominence, particularly in Canada—a country that is in the midst of a process of “truth and reconciliation” with its Indigenous Peoples. In the past, Indigenous musicians from the continent many call Turtle Island, like Link Wray and the members of Redbone, were rare; today, young artists like The Halluci Nation, DJ Shub, and others are receiving widespread exposure.

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October 2022

Blue Note Records 0602445659920
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV download

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In September, at a New York City event to promote his new autobiography, Rolling Stone cofounder and longtime publisher Jann Wenner responded to a question posed by host Bruce Springsteen: Who did he regret never interviewing for the magazine? Wenner didn’t hesitate: “Leonard Cohen.” After a pause of a few seconds, he added: “And Elvis.”

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September 2022

Irabbagast Records 021
Format: 24-bit/44.1kHz WAV download

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By rights, tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon should be as well known to jazz fans as peers Chris Potter, Mark Turner, or Joshua Redman. A 44-year-old Chicagoan who moved to New York City at the turn of this century, Irabagon won the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition in 2008, played alongside guitarist Mary Halvorson—one of the most-lauded jazz performers of the past decade—and has been a member of trumpeter Dave Douglas’s high-profile quintet for a number of years. Irabagon has a highly recognizable sound, impressive technique, and a broad scope of musical expression, as demonstrated on 13 albums under his own leadership. Yet, he continues to stay just under the radar of many listeners.

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August 2022

Yeros7 Music 0195269159801
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV download

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In an era where digital advertising, social media opinions, and all sorts of other “content” vie for our attention, the ability to disrupt has become a sought-after skill in the 21st century. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is a master of disruption.

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June 2022

Division 81 Records
Format: 24-bit/96kHz FLAC download

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The late ’80s and early ’90s witnessed a resurrection of sorts for the improvisational musical genre generally lumped under the problematic title “free jazz.” Granted, that term is a bit less confusing than “energy music,” “fire music,” or worst of all, the overgeneralized “avant-garde”—terms favored in the 1960s, when John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Archie Shepp blew long and hard—but the “free jazz” sobriquet does little to encapsulate the music made by artists like Charles Gayle, David S. Ware, and Ivo Perelman.

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February 2022

Blue Note Records B003473002
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV download

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This year marks a milestone anniversary; I’ve been writing about music on a regular basis for 30 years. Over that time, it’s likely I’ve encountered pianist Ethan Iverson more than any other artist, with the possible exception of trumpeter Dave Douglas. I caught Iverson with The Bad Plus many times during his tenure with the trio, sat on a panel discussion with him at the Portland Jazz Festival, shared the pages of DownBeat with him in his guise as a part-time music critic, and interviewed him for insights on topics as disparate as the late Andrew Hill and the state of jazz education. I’ve even seen him sit in on drums, fuelled by numerous martinis, at a jam session.

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May 2021

Pi 88
Format: 24-bit/96kHz FLAC download

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The term “art music” is one of the least specific attempts to categorize music. Most broadly, it is applied to all western classical music, while at its least precise it has been used to describe everything from 12-tone serialism to the music Kurt Weill composed for the Berlin stage. Most flagrantly, art music has been used to define any music that is not popular, which runs counter to the enormous success found by Weill, to say nothing of older composers like Beethoven or Bach. The term is also used in opposition to music that employs any type of folk idiom—a snobbish dismissal of anything created by someone who lacks formal training.

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