Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Gwendolyn Dease - Beguiled
by Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz
4-STARS While this fourth album from marimbist Gwendolyn Dease is rightly seeing release on the classical arm of Origin Records, it wouldn't have been completely out of place if it had landed on the jazz side of that imprint. Dease bypasses contemporary marimba fare and late twentieth century favorites from the usual suspects like Ney Rosauro, Casey Cangelosi, Joseph Schwanter, Keiko Abe, and Jacob Druckman, focusing instead on newly... read more
Dan Dean - Songs Without Words
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
4 1/2 STARS Bassist Dan Dean's original plan for this project was the hiring of sixteen string players to join him in the studio to record a set for solo bass with string orchestra: Vivaldi's Concerto For Lute and Orchestra in D Major, along with music from JS Bach, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff and Albononi. The cost for the project proved prohibitive, but the paucity of funds turned out to be the mother of innovation. Dean tackled the... read more
Dan Dean - Songs Without Words
by George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly
Wanna know what heaven is going to sound like? Grab a hold of this album and you'll at least have a hint.
Dan Dean supplies layers of his voice as well as an occasional bass and whistle to this wonderfully arranged collection of "classic" classics. His wordless vocals create an ethereal mood that floats with sublime joy on Bach's "Air on a G String" while he makes you feel like you're in a dream on "The Sheep May Safely Graze." Dean creates a... read more
Doug Lofstrom - Concertino: The Music Of Doug Lofstrom
by Daniel Coombs, Audiophile Audition
**** (4-stars)
Composer and bassist Doug Lofstrom has been composing prolifically since the 1970s. His diverse scores reflect his ongoing involvement in theater, dance, film and symphonic music. In the 1990s, he was composer-in-residence for the Metropolis Symphony Orchestra and during the 80s, musical director of Chicago?s Free Street Theatre. His works have been performed by the St. Louis, Atlanta and Oregon Symphony Orchestras, and... read more
Jim Gailloreto Jazz String Quintet - American Complex
by Susan Francis, JazzTimes
There is a noir jazz complexion in the music of Jim Gailloreto's Jazz String Quintet that reverberates of haunting sensations in the harmonies of the instruments as they travel along serpentine-curved passageways. The group's new CD, American Complex from Origin Classical label, covers an extensive network of movements from the vintage chamber jazz formations of yesteryear to the domains of avant garde, downbeat ambient, and eclectic... read more
Doug Lofstrom - Concertino: The Music Of Doug Lofstrom
by Robert Iannapollo, Cadence
Doug Lofstrom is a composer who is currently teaching at Columbia College Chicago. While the two main compositions on Concertino - Concertino For Oboe And Orchestra and Concertino for Harp And Orchestra, both 2011 - are both in the classical vein, it?s the third piece on the disc, ?The Plumed Serpent? (1982), that would most likely interest Cadence readers. In the early 80s Lofstrom was an active jazz bassist in Chigcao and he was in a trio... read more
Doug Lofstrom - Concertino: The Music Of Doug Lofstrom
by Laurence Vittes, Gramaphone
Chicago composer Doug Lofstrom has coupled first recordings of two modestly appealing orchestral concertinos for oboe and harp with an archival reprise of his Plumed Serpent studio fantasy from 30 years ago. There isn't much in either Concertino that hasn't been heard before - Richard Strauss and Hollywood musicals come to mind, though more svelte, brought up to date and internationalized - but they are both beautifully written for the... read more
Jim Gailloreto Jazz String Quintet - American Complex
by Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
For his sophomore effort with the Chicago-based HAWK string quartet in tow, Jim Gailloreto's skill in composition and arrangement for a string quartet has increased notably. Instead of forcing the quartet into a gypsy-jazz romp, Gailloreto keeps the players in their comfort zone -- free from improvisation, and showcasing technical mastery and careful collaboration without sacrificing an austerity of sorts. Over the top of the quartet, though,... read more
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