Browse some recent OA2 Reviews.
Randy Napoleon - Puppets - The Music of Gregg Hill
by Jeff Becker, Jazz Sensibilities
Randy Napoleon teamed up with vocalist Aubrey Johnson and an ensemble of Rodney Whitaker on bass, Quincy Davis on drums, and Rick Roe on piano. Special guests include Seth Edbersole on bass clarinet (tracks 5, 6, 7 & 8) & flute 3, 4 & 5), Brandon Rose on bass (track 2), and Will Crandell on drums (track 2) to bring us his latest album called, Puppets, The Music Of Gregg Hill. Hill has composed eleven challenging, melodic, and even... read more
George Cotsirilos - Past Present
by Dave Walker, Dave Walker Music
George Cotsirilos is a hidden treasure of jazz - one of those wonderful players that you know are out there somewhere working away without the wider recognition they deserve. This guitarist has paid his dues for almost thirty years now, and with this - his second CD - he shows that he has earned full membership to the club.
Past Present is a finely crafted presentation of original songs and standards, all of a consistently high quality.... read more
LP and the Vinyl - Heard and Seen
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
4 1/2 STARS Vocalist Leonard Patton can be heard and seen often in the San Diego County, California area, making his joyful noise. Often, he appears in the company of the Danny Green Trio, one of the jazz world's premier piano trios. The live shows are exhilarating affairs, with Patton—covering everything from Stevie Wonder to Michael Jackson to David Bowie to the Great American Songbook—displaying a seemingly effortless ability to... read more
Mai-Liis - Mai-Liis On Life
by Georges Tonla Briquet, Jazz'halo (Belgium)
Female singer-songwriters and jazz, they are quickly settled on the basis of comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Norah Jones. The Canadian Mai-Liis is one of the few to pass the test.
On her debut she navigates perfectly between these two worlds. She wrote the lyrics herself, for the music she hired pianist Darin Clendenin. A winning combination ("Oh Well" is an instant standard) partly due to the carefully chosen accompanists with Clendenin's... read more
Paul Tynan & Aaron Lington - Bicoastal Collective: Chapter Two
by Phillip McNally, Cadence Magazine
On (1) the piano is replaced with guitar, and Aaron Lington in the "tenor chair" is sporting a baritone. He's got a rude, rich sound on the instrument that plays well off the delicacy of the rest of the 5tet. The heart of the recording is "The Ravenspurn Collection," a suite of six English folk tunes arranged anew by trumpeter Paul Tynan. This suite is based on Ralph Vaughan Williams's composition "Six Studies in English Folksong for Cello and... read more
Svetlana and the Delancey Five - Night at the Speakeasy
by Michael Verity, About Entertainment
As sophisticated as is Lisa Hilton, as sweet and subtle as is Cyrille Aimee, so is Svetlana Shmulyian sexy and swinging. A veteran of the New York nightclub scene, Svetlana calls on an A-list roster of players to make this record, including drummer (and co-producer) Rob Garcia, trumpeter Charlie Caracas and bassist George Delancey. Also in the mix is trombonist Wycliffe Gordon. "Wycliffe has a natural chemistry with the band," says Svetlana of... read more
Gustavo Cortinas - Esse
by Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz
Gustavo Cortinas' Esse is a place where two passions meet and merge. The drummer's fascination with philosophy served as grist for the compositional mill, inspiring and guiding his hands and mind to create this deep-thinking treatise. It's a fascinating musical realization, exploration, and distillation of the works of Hegel, Aristotle, Descartes, Plato, and other brilliant minds.
Cortinas' quest for self-realization and self-actualization... read more
JazzVox - Jazzvox Presents: In Your Own Backyard
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz.com
Nich Anderson is a Northwest coast jazz vocalist and jazz vocals champion who has been bringing jazz vocal talent to his "house concerts" in Washington State for the past 10 years. Anderson and Origin Records' house presence Bill Anschell have produced a recording documenting some of this talent. The result is a collection of duets and trios, intimate in presentation, overt in the sheer ability of its participants, that well highlight the state... read more
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