John Hilderbrand
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Review: Dianne Reeves – Christmas Time Is Here
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I’ve always thought jazz is the best genre for Christmas music. The intimacy of the jazz trio especially can make for some of the most enjoyable music of the holiday season. Multi-Grammy winning vocalist Dianne Reeves proves this on her first seasonal recording Christmas Time Is Here. With the exception of a small number of…
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Soul Shadows by Joe Sample
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If you heard “The Texas Two Step” from his previous release The Pecan Tree and hoped that Joe Sample would do an entire recording of music like that, you’re in luck. Sample has released a solo piano recording called Soul Shadows, which features ten jazz chestnuts. The songs include Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” Ellington’s “I Got…
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Harmony & Abyss by Matthew Shipp
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While listening to Harmony and Abyss, the latest release by Matthew Shipp, the word futuristic keeps coming to mind. So if it’s “future” music, then when do we reach that future? I’m thinking we’re there now. Shipp takes a step beyond his last release, the excellent Equilibrium, and incorporates industrial sounds and free jazz. No…
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Incognito – Adventures In Black Sunshine
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Incognito comes full circle with Adventures in Black Sunshine, the new recording out now on Rice/Narada. In the mid to late 90s, leader Bluey steered the band away from the jazzier sounds that were its trademark into dance/pop/funk tunes. The group’s sound lost its distinctiveness, its identity. Perhaps due to the difficulty in marketing this…
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ECM’s Rarum Series
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Today marks the release of new CDs in the ECM :rarum (or “Selected Recordings”) series. The series allows the artists that have been on the famed label select what they think are their best efforts, then explain why in the liner notes. Volumes IX (Pat Metheny), XII (Jack DeJohnette), XIII (John Surman), XIV (John Abercrombie),…