Eliane Elias‘ return to the Blue Note label after a decade working elsewhere is a triumph. This salute to the late pianist Bill Evans, one of her favorite players, explores a number of songs he recorded, including both standards and originals. Evans‘ bassist from his final trio, Marc Johnson, is not…

Eliane Elias has considerable chops as an acoustic pianist, although as a singer, she is definitely limited and doesn’t have a great range by any means. No one’s going to mistake Elias’ singing for that of Flora Purim, Astrud Gilberto, Gal Costa or Tânia Maria. But while her voice…

This is not an album for those die-hard bossa fans. These popular Jobim tunes all were revisited by Elias with the goal of bridging the gap between Brazilian music and jazz; that goal was achieved. She affirms herself in this complex idiom, resulting in an album that can be…

Featuring tracks culled from eight of her albums, beginning fittingly enough with 1989’s Eliane Elias Plays Jobim, Blue Note has compiled a strong collection of pianist Eliane Elias’ Brazilian jazz cuts on Brazilian Classics. Elias’ classically influenced touch is evident here on such standards as Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Chega…

Eliane Elias is such a fine hard bop/post-bop pianist that it is a pity that she occasionally feels compelled to vocalize; her singing voice is small, quiet, and unimpressive. However, other than her brief vocals on “The Beat of My Heart,” “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” and “Blah…

Jazz clarinetist Don Byron likes to focus on specific musical styles. He’s released albums filled with Latin jazz (Six Musicians), the klezmer music of Mickey Katz (Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz), and the repertory works of Duke Ellington, John Kirby, and Raymond Scott (Bug Music). Now…

Anybody interested in Don Byron gets his range, and his willingness to try almost anything that tickles his fancy, whether it be klezmer, swing, funk, out jazz, blues or funky soul. He explores and leaves his mark on something and moves on. From Music for Six Musicians and Tuskegee…

Clarinetist Don Byron once again mixes post-bop, swing, and funk into a unique concoction on Ivey-Divey. Just like Bug Music wasn’t necessarily ’30s swing and A Fine Line: Arias and Lieder wasn’t exactly a classical album, Ivey-Divey isn’t truly a straight-ahead, mainstream jazz album, although purists and avant-garde fans…

Don Byron‘s fourth Blue Note album is a belated follow-up to 1995’s Music for Six Musicians. Six musicians are once again featured here, but they’re joined by a large number of guests, bringing the cumulative total to 20. As always, Byron looks to unlikely sources for inspiration, beginning with Henry Mancini‘s theme from…

This release from altoist Sonny Fortune is a particularly strong session, a mostly high-powered modal modern mainstream date with Fortune playing at his best and contributing five of the eight compositions. Trumpeter Eddie Henderson (who is filling the gap left by the ailing Freddie Hubbard) and tenor-saxophonist Joe Lovano…