Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band marks its 20th anniversary in 2017 with the release of their sublime fifth album, Body and Shadow, a succinct nine-track meditation on lightness/darkness that arrives like a balm for the soul, ebbing and flowing with grace, subtlety and no shortness of beauty. Formed…
The marvelous Dr. Lonnie Smith stands tall as the foremost maestro of the Hammond B-3 organ and at the age of 75 still reigns as a master of innovation and experimentation. The 2017 NEA Jazz Master may say that all he does is simply old school, but Smith paints…
Different worlds have always collided, vividly, in the sound of GoGo Penguin. The Manchester-based trio conjure richly atmospheric music that draws from their shared love of electronica, their grounding in classical conservatoires and jazz ensembles alongside indie bands, and a merging of acoustic and electronic techniques. Over the past few years, it…
You already know the Drumhedz. You just don’t know that you know the Drumhedz. They’ve been playing on your favorite albums for years, setting the tone or keeping time at the best shows you’ve ever seen, making the young stars sound like legends and the legends sound like gods,…
Of all the rich and varied projects guitarist Nels Cline has pursued since his emergence as a leader in the late 1980s, his two-guitar duo with Julian Lage, documented on the 2014 Mack Avenue album Room, ranks among the most special. “When Julian and I started playing together it…
From his expansive work composing the scores for Spike Lee films ranging from the documentary 4 Little Girls to the epic Malcolm X, as well as his own discography of recordings such as A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), 2018 USA Fellow and five-time Grammy-winning trumpeter/composer…
‘Bout Soul does not mean the same thing as soul-jazz, as the opening track “Soul” makes abundantly clear. Written by Grachan Moncur III and poet Barbara Simmons, “Soul” is a tonally free tone-poem that features Simmons’ spoken recital. It’s about what the concept of soul is, not what soul…
The material that comprises It Just Got to Be was recorded during the same sessions as Here We Come, and like that album, this record has its share of romantic standards, including “Stella By Starlight” and “The Nearness of You.” It Just Got to Be also captures the Three Sounds in the mood to stretch out…
In 2018, the esteemed pianist, composer, bandleader and educator Kenny Barron celebrates his 75th birthday and marks the 50th year of a remarkable recording career that shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the year is punctuated with yet another milestone: the release of his Blue Note debut Concentric Circles, a…
