Cuban pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba makes an autobiographical journey on Paseo, a Spanish word that translates as “passage,” “walk,” and even “stroll.” With a new generation of his New Cuban Quintet that features drummer Ignacio Berroa, soprano Luis Felipe Lamoglia, and electric bassist Jose Armando Gola, Rubalcaba revisits…

For those who prefer their Latin jazz to lean a bit more heavily to the jazz side, Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba ranks among the best of the modern composer/arrangers, with a style that pays tribute to the African, Caribbean, and European influences of his native country while updating them…

When director Spike Lee tapped Terence Blanchard to compose the score for his 2006 documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, the agony of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was a story they both knew had to be told from a moral standpoint and with cultural…

Two years before Flow, Terence Blanchard released Bounce, a departure from anything he had done in his already storied career. It was a seminal album, with the ideas of a musician 20 years his junior, but the skill and command of the jazz great that he had become. As…

Trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard has come further in a sense than any of the 1980s Art Blakey alumni. While Wynton and Branford Marsalis may have higher profiles, Blanchard is the player who has most improved as both a soloist and an ensemble player. He is an excellent bandleader…

Six years in the pop music world is a long time. In fact, for many artists, it’s a lifetime or two. Suzanne Vega has been away from recording for a long time, but it isn’t because she hasn’t been working. She is the subject of Some Journey, a documentary film by…

Arias and lieder are forms strongly associated with classical music, yet clarinetist Don Byron defines them in a newly expansive way for this remarkable project. To Byron, arias and lieder belong not only to classical figures, but also to writers as diverse as Ornette Coleman, Roy Orbison, Stevie Wonder,…

With Romance With the Unseen, Don Byron decides to not focus on a particular musical style, as he has done for most of his albums. Instead, he chooses to craft an album of songs that live up to the record’s title; these are songs that feel romantic, but aren’t…

In the spirit of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew (and his late work in hip-hop rhythms like Tutu), Tim Hagans created this stew of trumpet lines over a bass and drum backbone. Some listeners may get turned off by Hagans’ super-hot blowing, but the album offers some nice grooves. The…

Trumpeter Tim Hagans’ fascination with the Electric Miles Davis Era continues on this 2000 release titled Re-Animation: Live. A follow-up to his teaming with saxophonist Bob Belden on the 1998 studio release Animation – Imagination, the music from this offering is culled from a 1999 performance at the Montreal…