For their latest release, Project Planet: The Blue Chapter, the Iris Trio, which can typically be found in the classical music neighborhood, offers a suite of suites composed in a genre-crossing style by pianist and composer Florian Hoefner, best known for his work as a jazz artist, with accompanying poems by Don McKay. From Swiss jazz vocalist Nina Reiter come audacious arrangements for her tentet group, MetaLogue, of the music of the late Swiss composer Mani Planzer, who refused to allow the strictures of any particular genre to impede his self-expression.
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.
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.
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.
Two Threes with New Releases
Two piano trios, each led by an artist new to me, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto and Henry Hey, speak the same language, but in quite different dialects.