Recorded in 2021 in Kyiv Ukraine with the Kyiv Mozart String Quartet and later adding in some percussion and saxophone brings Friesen's work to yet another level. This is personal for him. Ukraine is his mother's ancestral home, and Friesen made many trips there before the pandemic then the war made returning impossible. Some of those past trips included John Stowell, and both have toured extensively throughout Europe. Friesen heads back to... read more
Give a jazzbo vibe player some grant money and crowd funding and what's he do with it? Luckily for us, this vibe player hired some ace cats to back him up making a date that brings fusion to vibes and good vibes to all. Frequent duet partner Dan Dean brings his bass (and producer's hat) on board and there's a lot of circles that are completed here. With 50 years of hammering those mallets under his belt, the former tyro knows what works and... read more
Recorded live at the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle, E Pluribus Unum is a true triumph of piano trio jazz. Backed by veteran bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer John Bishop, pianist Galper displays an incredible array of jaw-dropping keyboard skills as the trio performs four original compositions and three interesting covers. A stunning version of Irving Berlin's "How Deep is the Ocean" immediately catches attention with Galper's... read more
Between stints of touring with Dr. John, or Sonny Rollins, or his own Deep Blue Organ Trio, guitarist Bobby Broom has been holding court in a Chicago restaurant for a decade or so in a small trio format. Eventually feeling comfortable with the vibe he'd been creating, a live album was culled from a series of recordings over a few months of the live show. Among all of the jazz standards here, there's a constant interplay between drummer Kobie... read more
Soprano and baritone saxophones open "Two Islands I" in a sprightly mien, like an awakening. Luciana Souza sings lines from a Margaret Atwood poem: "I could say it without looking, the animals; the blackened trees, the arrivals; the bodies, words, it goes and goes; I could recite it backwards." Tim Hagans begins a lovely solo on flügelhorn, kinetically abetted by drummer Bill Stewart, who is a constant but varicolored presence on Andrew... read more
A fixture at the annual Port Townsend Jazz Festival the last weekend in July, Seattle-based Thomas Marriott leads an outstanding band of Emerald City contemporaries on this collection of standards, seldom-played gems by Freddie Hubbard and Chick Corea, a stunning reading of Ellington's New World A Comin', Marriott original, and a seductive reinvention of The Breeze and I.
Marriott is a brilliant player with chops to spare on... read more
This is one of the best drummer led records that I have heard in a long while. We can tell that many of these musicians have been working together for a while in Conrad Herwig's Latin Side... band. However, under Ameen's leadership the Latin flavors get further twisted into a mélange of fusion, jazz, Latin, groove, and everything else; "Ameenmusic" if you will. And with Ameen's first live recording of his band, the music really jumps out of the... read more
The best jazz recordings of 2020 to date: Savvy listeners already know that Chicago pianist-composer Cohan has a well-honed gift for writing long-form jazz compositions. It reaches a high point in "Originations," a suite Cohan performed to vivid effect at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in 2018. The new recording deepens earlier favorable impressions of the piece, which amounts to a series of tone poems in which Cohan explores his Middle... read more
This is just a small collection of the Origin Records reviews. Click here to view all reviews or try to Search for your favorite CD title.
Abate Berihun & The Addis Ken Project - Addis Ken
by Hanna Kay, Cult News (Paris)
Abate Berihun & The Addis Ken Project - Addis Ken
by Budapest, Rudolf Radnai
Abate Berihun & The Addis Ken Project - Addis Ken
by Editor, Bman's Blues Report
Jared Hall - Hometown
by Editor, Bman's Blues Report
Dawn Clement - Dear Ms. Dearie
by Editor, Bman's Blues Report
Jared Hall - Hometown
by Dee Dee McNeil, Making A Scene
Affinity Trio - New Outlook
by Tom Haugen, Take Effect
Michael Dease Big Band - Return Trajectory
by Thierry De Clemensat, Paris Move
Brad Goode Quintet Feat. Ernie Watts - Live Your Dream: Live at North Street Cabaret
by Thierry De Clemensat, Paris Move
Maja Jaku - Blessed & Bewitched
by Tom Haugen, Take Effect