Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Oscar Hernández & Alma Libre - Love the Moment
by Raul da Gama, Latin Jazz Network
Editor's Pick The celebrated composer, pianist and director of the award-winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Oscar Hernández has another incarnation and it's called Alma Libre, a smaller group that he sometimes calls together to play his high-spirited and energetic - and sometimes moody and elegiac - music. As with everything he composes (and performs), this repertoire is pure gold; a series of highly imaginative compositions with... read more
Peter Erskine & the JAM Music Lab All-Stars - Bernstein in Vienna
by George W Harris, Jazz Weekly
Legendary drummer Peter Erskine brings together a band consisting of tenor saxophonist Robert Unterkofler, Bertl Mayer on harmonica, violinist Cozy Friedel, guitarist Andreas Varady, Danny Ziemann on bass and musical director Danny Grissett on piano for a tribute to one of America's great composers, Leonard Bernstein, at a concert in Vienna Austria back in October of 2021.
Erskine is a master here, creating irresistible crests for Unterkofler... read more
Joe Locke / Geoffrey Keezer Group - Live In Seattle
by Ric Bang, the Davis Enterprise
*****
This CD presents the 2005 award-winning concert - and U.S. debut - of the Joe Locke and Geoffrey Keezer quartet. Until recently, this group toured only in Japan, although it made two recordings for the Sony "Eightly-Eight" series label.
But even a cursory look at the leaders' backgrounds and experience will reveal that we're dealing with a pair of Wunderkinds.
Locke plays vibes and has long been recognized as the heir apparent... read more
Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra - The Endless Search
by Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
After a guest spot with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra in 2001, longtime sax player Jimmy Heath went back to work at Queens College. Letting a few years pass, the SRJO came back with a commission -- an attempt to create new music for the older structured form of big-band jazz. The result was a three-part tour de force of harmony that manages to showcase the formidable horns of Seattle individually without simply resorting to solos. This is... read more
Giacomo Gates - Centerpiece
by Joe Lang, New Jersey Jazz
Jazz vocalist and terminal hipster Giacomo Gates just keeps getting better and better with each recording. "Centerpiece" (Origin 82428) finds Gates backed by Harold Danko on piano, Ray Drummond on bass, Greg Bandy on drums, Vincent Herring on alto sax and Vic Juris on guitar. Gates has many assets, among them a rich and flexible voice, a natural sense of swing, the ability to scat musically and logically, and an attentiveness to lyrics that is... read more
Alan Jones & François Thèberge - Another View
by Chris Spector, Midwest Record
Two long time musical kindred spirits decide to go for it on an all original date for jazz orchestra that's heavy on the art jazz so much so that it's almost like a ricochet from the 50s. Programmed almost like a show, this is a set that colors widely outside the lines defying expectations swinging for the fences in the way that records that don't worry about being hits but worry about being good often do. Quite the urbane listening... read more
Toby Koenigsberg - Sense
by Vanessa Salvia, Eugene Weekly
To really get a feel for Toby Koenigsberg's new CD, Sense, you have to hear it. It's smooth jazz
piano that, to my ears, is reminiscent of early Miles Davis transcribed for piano, bass and
drums. Koenigsberg is assistant professor of jazz piano at the UO, where he earned his
undergraduate degree in music before furthering his education at both Eastman and the Peabody
Conservatory.
He formed a new group in January, after the recording... read more
Hal Galper - E Pluribus Unum - Live in Seattle
by Brad Walseth, JazzChicago.net
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
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