Browse some recent OA2 Reviews.
Jihee Heo - Are You Ready?
by Paul Simpson, The Answer is in the Beat, WCBN
South Korean pianist/composer Jihee Heo's new album is a brisk yet refined set of eight compositions charting the progress she's made so far as an artist. A graduate from the Manhattan School of Music, she's been a part of the NYC music scene for a decade. After considering making this album for a while, she finally took the plunge after re-reading a passage from Art Spirit by Robert Henry, stating that no one can be final, but they can record... read more
LP and the Vinyl - Heard and Seen
by Andrea Baroni, Tracce di Jazz Magazine (Italy)
Extensive and recurrent is the diatribe between jazz lovers who can't stand listening to the beloved idiom used for translations from pop and song, and those who prefer the new guise of the known classics, appreciating just enough improvisations and impromptu inventions, as long as premise or continuation of the theme cantabile and sung. A separation line that, in the Italian soil of the Italian pop (ular), is most evident and finds... read more
Jay Lawrence - Thermal Strut
by Forrest Dylan Bryant, Jazz Times
This lively straightahead date matches Jay Lawrences precision drumming with the graceful piano and stylish arrangements of Tamir Hendelman. The pair is exuberant on uptempo numbers and soothing on ballads, maintaining an unflappable poise throughout: The Beatles, Jobim and Herbie Hancock all get the uptown-swing treatment. The session sounds squeaky-clean without becoming antiseptic, note-perfect but never dull. And bassist Lynn Seaton nearly... read more
Stan Bock & The New Tradition - Feelin' It
by Jerome Wilson, Cadence
Feelin' It demonstrates that there is still a lot of life in the notion of marrying strong funk and r'n'b grooves to Jazz. Tim Gilson's bubbling electric bass is crucial in maintaining the drive. He grounds both the strutting funk of "Feelin' It" and "It's Not That Easy" as well as the broad, crawling pace of "Let's Fall In Love", a tune enlivened by Stan Bock's and Renato Caranto's soloing. "Up In The Air" has a choppy New... read more
Steve Owen - Stand Up Eight
by Chris Robinson, Outside-Inside-Out
Owen, who directs the jazz studies program at the University of Oregon, is one of the top contemporary big band writers and arrangers going. If you're not familiar with his work, then listen to Stand Up Eight, which is easily one of the best big band albums of the last couple years. In addition to the excellent writing and ensemble playing, it features a number of outstanding soloists. Trumpeter Clay Jenkins' playing is a standout on the... read more
Gordon Lee and the Gleeful Big Band - Flying Dream
by Jack Bowers, All About Jazz
We're not told much about Gordon Lee except that he's a Portland, Oregon-based music educator who has performed and recorded with a number of small groups and has been writing big-band charts for eight years. His influences, he writes in the brief liner notes, range from Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Maria Schneider to Gustav Mahler and Igor Stravinsky, and the imprint of one or more of them is visible from... read more
Erik Jekabson - A Brand New Take
by Chris Spector, Midwest Record
If you've ever wondered what makes John Mayer interesting after all this time, maybe it's because he has this jazzbo lurking in the background putting some punch into the kind of mopey sounds that would inspire Taylor Swift---for a while. Left to his own devises with a Bay Area crew, the trumpeter knows how to blow up a good kind of holy racket that takes improv in and out of the moment but always on point. Showing no bottom to his well after... read more
Electric Squeezebox Orchestra - The Falling Dream
by Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
The follow up to Electric Squeezebox Orchestra's 2015 debut, the wildly diverse yet always swinging Cheap Rent is, if possible, even more ambitious than its predecessor. The 17-piece big band led by trumpeter/album producer Erik Jekabson cut The Falling Dream over several days at the legendary Fantasy studios. Of its ten tracks, nine were written by members. The lone cover is a daring, and imaginative read of McCoy Tyner's "Señor Carlos" that... read more
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