Wayne Horvitz plays piano along with Hammond B3 and a collection of other keyboards as he teams up with Geoff Harper/b and Eric Eagle/dr for 14 concise themes. Horvitz veers towards Thelonious Monk in song contexts, see-sawing on the frail…
Author: George W. Harris
Matt Ulery: Sifting Stars
Bassist Matt Ulery leads an intriguing 16member Sifting Stars Orchestra, combined with a five piece Axiom Brass band to mix woodwinds, voice, strings and horns to a rich ten song album. The large ensemble never sounds cluttered, rather you get…
John MacMurchy’s Art Of Breath: Volume 2
John MacMurchy leads a 8 musician, 2 voiced team of bruce Casidy/EVI-fh, Olivia Esher/frh, Dan Ionescu/g, Stacie McGregor/p, Ross MacIntyre/b, Daniel Barnes, Alan Hetherington/perc, and Jocelyn Barth-Jessica Lalonde/voc through a collection of gentle Brazilian breezes. The pretty voices sway through…
Jae Sinnett: The Americana Groove Project
Drummer and keyboardist Jae Sinnett digs a groove like he’s working on a chain gang with a smoky team of Tery Burrell/b, Jay Rakes/g, Weldon Hil/B3 and guests Justin Kauflin/p-key and Jennifer Gammill/voc. Sinnett shows his roots as his opening…
David Dominique: Mask
I had to look up what the “flugabone” is, as it’s what leader David Dominique plays. It’s basically a “marching trombone,” and he makes it fit in well to this Mingusy mood of bop and freedom. Teamed with Brian Walsh/ts-cl,…
Nick Grinder: Farallon
Trombonist Nick Grinder takes the listener on a musical tour of the Farallon islands in Northern California with his quintet of Ethan Helm/ts, Juanma Trujillo/b, Walter Stinson/b and Matt Honor/dr. Grinder uses various tones in his horn to create various…
Subtone: Moose Blues
The band Subtone consists of Magnus Schriefl/tp-fh, Malte Durrschnabel/ts-cl-fl, Lforan Hoefner/p, Matthias Pichler/b and Peter Gall/dr, specializing in rich and upbeat post bop work. With the mix of flute and horn, the quintet sounds a bit like vintage Herbie Hancock…
Mike Steinel Quintet: Song and Dance
Mike Steinel mixes his trumpet and flugelhorn in a velvety way as he blends it with Rosana Eckert’s vocals in both wordless and lyric form. The remaining team of Pat Coil/B3-p, Carl Hillman/b and Steve Barnes/dr show flexibility and rich…
Tim Haldeman: Open Water As A Child
Tim Haldeman plays tenor sax, flute and piano as he leads an intuitive band of John Goode/words-voc, Dan Bennett/as, Justin Walter/tp, Jordan Schug/cel, Jonathan Taylor/dr and Ben Willis/b through five communicative and free originals. Goode recites a dark poem of…
Van Morrison @ The Wiltern 02.05.19
At 73, Van Morrison is going through a musical renaissance, and like the original Renaissance, he is accomplishing it by returning to the foundations and “first love” of his musical civilization, the jump blues of the 50s. With a swinging…