Category Archives: Reviews

A Supergroup Quartet and a Super Sextet

New releases from Chris Potter’s quartet and Ernesto Cervini’s sextet Turboprop wash away the dust of everyday life* and demonstrate that modern jazz is alive and well and in good hands.

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A Grab Bag of New Releases

The music had started sounding the same to me, and I feared that I could not listen—or hear—anymore. Then, within a week or so, I came across these five albums—from John Lurie, American Patchwork Quartet, Alexvndria, the Yes! Trio, and Allison Burik—that sound nothing like one another. Thank goodness. Here are five short (mostly) reviews to whet your appetite.

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Two Singular New Releases, from Sorry for Laughing and from Lily Guarneros Maase

Sorry for Laughing, Gordon Whitlow’s unclassifiable group, has developed a sound that would be near impossible for anyone else to imitate. Lily Guarneros Maase unblinkingly considers abusive love.

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Jazzed: New Releases from Dan Tepfer and Miguel Zenón, Myra Melford, Billy Mohler, and Lafayette Gilchrist

Here are four distinctively different projects that fall, to one degree or another, under the jazz umbrella—from the Dan Tepfer and Miguel Zenón duo, Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet, Billy Mohler’s chordless quartet, and Lafayette Gilchrist’s sextet. They offer distinctly different musical experiences, but they all share one thing: no one else sounds anything like any of them.

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