Including sessions recorded by Art Pepper for Savoy from 1952-54 Surf Ride was originally released in 1956. Featuring three groups of players, the album collects twelve, mostly Pepper composed, cuts including “Holiday Flight” – with Pepper’s playing throughout on superior form. This new edition of the album is released as part of the Original Jazz Classics Series on 180-gram vinyl pressed at RTI with all-analog mastering from the original tapes at Cohearent Audio and a Stoughton Tip-On Jacket.
The music on this Savoy LP is quite brilliant, but the packaging leaves something to be desired. The recording dates are all incorrect and there are only 12 performances included (around 37 minutes). There are quartet outings with either Russ Freeman or Hampton Hawes on piano and tracks…
Category: jazz
…Jim Staley on trombones, Ikue Mori on electronics, and John Zorn on alto saxophone.
Friends and musical cohorts since the early ’80s, these three master improvisers come together to perform a freewheeling set of outrageous and mind-blowing improvisations. Recorded at Roulette, founded in 1978 and one of New York’s most adventurous venues, the music is full of surprising twists and jumps from one mood to another with mercurial synchronicity. Dedicated to the memory of Downtown theatrical genius Richard Foreman, Alchemical Theatre presents nine pieces of telepathic, counter-intuitive New York improvisation by three legendary figures of the Downtown scene.
Most jazz records are recorded in studios with perfect acoustics. Ours was recorded in a French château surrounded by vineyards. And the acoustics were perfect too.
The atmosphere was as rich and complex as the best wines of the region – an incomparable setting for a jazz session. Morten Lund, Kaisa Mäensivu and I – each an artist in our own right – had never been on stage together before that day. And yet it clicked at that moment. Under the high ceilings of the castle, surrounded by old wine barrels, we reached into the Great American Songbook and pulled out something fresh, vibrant and new.
We love these melodies. They’re like perfect little stories wrapped up in 32 bars. The jazz standards are our roots.
For their third collaborative album, Ruth Mascelli & Mary Hanson Scott have come up with an intriguing title – Esoteric Lounge Music Now, presenting a sort of dilemma for the listeners – what should esoteric lounge music sound like now?
Well, what Mascelli and Scott seem to have in mind is their take on all things noir in music – from a vision of jazz noir soundtracks of fifties and sixties combined with the dark touches that could be found on the prime trip-hop of second part of the nineties, neatly combined and meshed into dark late night tone sculptures that combine Mascelli’s deep, darkened vocals with Scott’s, often FX-blasted reeds and other electronic embellishments. The duo draws both on their previous musical experiences (Mascelli as a part of…
The fusion of jazz, baroque piano, vocals and traditional Central African and Middle Eastern rhythms might sound like an ambitious overreach, with too many influences competing for space. Yet Afro Baroque proves that what could have been a chaotic collision of styles instead shows how rhythm, melody and cultural expression can complement each other to produce an album of dynamic interplay that entertains throughout.
The driving force behind this cross-genre synthesis is the combination of Israeli-Italian pianist Yakir Arbib and Cameroonian drummer and vocalist Conti Bilong. Arbib has been blind since birth and suffers from synesthesia, which blends senses so that musical tones are seen as different colors. A Berklee graduate, he is equally…
This trio unites the Lebanese pianist Rami Khalifé, Albanian cellist Redi Hasa and Iranian-French percussionist, saz and zarb goblet drum player Bijan Chemirani to explore a domain of sensitive acoustic composition.
L’Antidote invest folk forms with a neo-classical air, playing with their surrounding space and savouring the creation of delightfully calming atmospheres. They make collective music that has room for individual expression.
Opener ‘Pomegranate’ matches nimble piano, softly droned cello (with what sounds like very light electronics) and flexible frame drum (daf) fluidly, while the standout ‘Dates, Figs And Nuts’ features Khalifé’s prepared piano percussiveness. There have been a few albums lately…
By any measure, Dhafer Youssef is a rare figure in modern music, a Tunisian-born oud virtuoso who has built bridges between Arabic traditions and global jazz, between spiritual contemplation and contemporary sound. Yet even for longtime followers of his work, his new release comes as a surprise. For the first time, Youssef has joined the acclaimed German label ACT, a move that feels both inevitable and long overdue.
Artists from ACT’s roster, bassist Chris Jennings and guitarist Nguyên Lê among them, have been close collaborators for years. Hearing Lê’s lyrical, electric phrasing entwine once again with Youssef’s haunting voice feels like a reunion of kindred spirits rather than a mere session partnership. Their interplay brings depth to…
Finnish pianist Aki Rissanen has built an impressive discography through collaborations with artists including Rick Margitza, Dave Liebman and Randy Brecker, contributing to 18 albums as either leader or co-leader. Yet he is perhaps best known for the part he plays in leading one of European jazz’s most distinctive piano trios, the Aki Rissanen Trio.
The album Imaginary Mountains, the title of which is a nod to the influence of Keith Jarrett’s Personal Mountains (1989), features jazz with classical influences from Rissanen’s early training and also reflects his interest in electronic sounds. This is the fifth release from the trio, which features bassist Antti Lotjonen and drummer Teppo Mäkynen. Their long-time collaboration, both in the studio and on the road, is reflected in their…
Animal, Surrender! returns with mathy, complicated grooves. The core duo of Peter Kerlin and Rob Smith continues to concoct oddly rhythmed but intoxicating reveries, but this time adds pipe organist Curt Sydnor to the sinuous mix. This second album continues in that vein, caging ruminative, bass-toned dream sequences in prickly post-modern architectures.
Despite the new member, Animal, Surrender! still sounds like a duo. The give-and-take between Kerlin and Smith continues to define this outfit’s lurch and stutter and sway. Sydnor, though, hovers in the margins, unleashing long, spooky tremulous tones that heighten the band’s aura of surreality.
The title track, for instance, unspools long, lucid phrases from the higher strings on…
Perception is the 1973 second album by Catalyst, the Philadelphia jazz-funk quartet whose blend of soul jazz, fusion, and avant-garde set them apart as a cult phenomenon. Featuring Zuri Tyrone Brown (bass), Onaje Sherman Ferguson (drums, percussion), Nwalinu Odean Pope (tenor saxophone, flute), and Sanifu Eddie Green (electric piano), the album stretches from spacious, electric fusion to driving, groove-forward funk and episodes of free improvisation. Recently reissued to renewed acclaim, Perception is recognized for its raw, inventive energy and genre-defying musicianship that prefigures later jazz fusion movements.
Emerging from the fertile musical landscape of early-1970s Philadelphia, Catalyst…
VA – Jazz Dispensary Presents: Dream a Dream with Studio G: Cratedigger’s Archive (1970-2009) (2025)
Established by John Gale in London in 1966, Studio G produced a wide range of genres and styles, geared toward local TV, sports programming and adverts. As Ryan Jebavy, producer of Dream a Dream, explains in his liner notes, it unleashed “pastoral folk, maniacal horror, funk-spat jazz, quixotic pop, alluring electro and the usual novelty side spells of national anthems, children’s music and whatever other utilitarian cues society demanded of the moment” upon the commercial space. Even as more sizable outfits such as KPM, Bruton, De Wolfe and Chappell consumed the majority of the marketplace, Studio G offered a truly fetching alternative-sleek, hip art not previously seen on mostly unremarkable album covers released by neighboring companies…
North London Line continues Jah Wobble’s fascination with London’s hidden currents and forgotten spaces, inviting listeners to experience familiar territory through fresh ears. It’s a meditative ride through neighborhoods constantly in flux, powered by a bass that resonates with the rumble of passing trains and centuries of stories beneath the tracks.
The album North London Line (Mildmay) is an interesting concept to me, with the spoken word poetry it has a John Cooper Clarke feel to it, it’s almost a love letter to that area of North to West London. Where did this idea come from what drew you to writing about that and how did you come up with it? John: Well, I’m used to North London over the years, I call it the old North London Line…
Freedom from, or freedom to, that is the question. When the word was first applied to jazz, it was mostly the former; free jazz rebelled against increasingly confining practices and expectations. But when Argentine sopranino and tenor saxophonist Ada Rave and Polish pianist Marta Warelis play together, it’s more a matter of the latter. Do they want to form a tune on the spot, or sink deep into a sonic texture? Rip it up, or wax reflective? The answer is yes. When they recorded this album in concert on June 3, 2024, the Amsterdam venue Splendor’s stage was a free zone where anything was permitted.
But these are players who sincerely reckon with the responsibility that accompanies such freedom. They have responsibilities to each other…
Seeing Pat Thomas with his [Ahmed] quartet earlier this year was a revelation. The latest release of this prolific composer and improviser, HIKMAH, is a very different type of album. However, it maintains the exploratory energy and creative intensity that made his live performances so compelling.
Here, it is just Thomas on piano improvising his way through eight short-to-medium length tracks. Equally informed by classical music, jazz, and the experimental, Thomas plays with a percussive and angular style replete with irregular timings and unexpected chording. But he also has a playful side that peers out around the corners from time to time.
Thomas’s works come across as introspective and reflective, not because he follows…
Trumpeter Theo Croker’s recent releases present his fluency and warmth as appealing flavours in a bed of studio-crafted hip-hop and R&B. Jazz is in the mix, but mostly limited to a few brooding phrases and occasional pithy bursts. Sullivan Fortner remains best known for his immaculate piano accompaniment and wide stylistic range — collaborators include Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon and vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant. The two now combine for Play: an exquisite, jazz-rich, equal-partners trumpet/piano duet that showcases their superb sonic control and grasp of mood.
The original project, based on a selection of covers, was recorded, and discarded, all in the same day. “It felt very stale,” said Croker, or in Fortner’s words “more like being in school”.
Made up of an all-star roster (Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann), Los Angeles-based quintet SML assemble their recordings from a hybrid of live and in-studio performances.
Small Medium Large introduced their style of fluid, groove-heavy improvisations, and second effort How You Been continues in the same direction, but feels more assured and deliberate. The group’s members have clearly become more in tune with each other, and their chemistry is tighter and stronger. There’s a more natural flow to the rhythms here, as well as a bit more studio polish, making the tracks sound closer to planned-out compositions rather than jam sessions. They’re able to balance blippy, off-kilter…