Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Anthony Branker & Imagine - Songs My Mom Liked
by Stephen Graham, Marlbank (UK)
We've long appreciated the work of the composer Anthony Branker going back over a decade to Uppity on the same issuing label here Origin - and our admiration grows still more. Themed as a celebration of and dedication to the composer's mother who is in her late eighties and who is suffering from dementia, Branker knows how much his music lifts his mother and revisits some of his earlier work in her honour.
It's a really good band that Branker... read more
Marc Seales - People & Places
by Mark Griffith, Modern Drummer
Pianist Marc Seales's quartet recording featuring saxophonist Ernie Watts is a primarily mellow affair with tunes like "Rue Cler," "For You My Dear," and "Ascending Truth." However, Wayne Shorter's Weather Report tune "Palladium" and "The Muddy Chicago Blues" do kick the intensity up a bit. Drummer Moyes Lucas Jr. and bassist Bruce Lett keep the intensity up on the ballads and light a fire under the soloists. Watts' legendary and soulful... read more
Matt Jorgensen +451 - Hope
by LYNN DARROCH, The Oregonian
This is not just another collection of intelligent contemporary jazz originals by a group of talented Pacific Northwest artists. It is one of more than 80 CDs produced by Origin Records, the prolific Seattle jazz label, publisher and presenting organization, and it is distinguished by the qualities that many of the label's products display: great writing, a fresh sound and excellent musicianship.
It's also by Origin Records co-owner Matt... read more
Florian Hoefner - Coldwater Stories
by SERGE JULIEN, Maxazine (Netherlands)
Three years ago, the German jazz pianist and composer Florian Hoefner exchanged the vibrant city life of New York for the Canadian fishing town of St. John's in Newfoundland. The impact of that step, Hoefner, was splendidly translated into his new album 'Coldwater Stories'.
Although this is Hoefner's fourth CD, he debuts as soloist. In order to feel as comfortable as possible, he chose the Sendesaal in German Bremen for the recordings. For... read more
Geof Bradfield - African Flowers
by , TheJazzPage.com
In 2008, multi-reed instrumentalist Geof Bradfield was a member of a month-long musical tour of the African countries of Rwanda, Uganda, Congo and Zimbabwe sponsored by the U.S. State Department and Jazz at Lincoln Center. It was part of a program to take American music abroad. Bradfield, however, received as much as he gave to the experience, soaking in a great deal of African music while on the tour. African Flowers is the product of his... read more
Upper Left Trio - Cycling
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz
It would be too easy to pigeonhole the Upper Left Trio as a Bad Plus wannabe. Doing so would certainly be inaccurate, as the Upper Left Trio exists at approximately the midpoint between the Oscar Peterson Trio and Medeski, Martin, and Wood. The band's debut recording, Cycling, consists of 10 well-crafted original piano trio compositions that fall conservatively well short of the Bad Plus, producing a record that will not boast the band being the... read more
Jordan VanHemert - Survival of the Fittest
by George W Harris, Jazz Weekly
Tenor saxist Jordan VanHemert mixes and matches his rhythm team of Helen Sung/p, Rodney Whitaker/b and Lewis Nash/dr with a brass secion of Terell Stafford/tp-fh and Michael Dease/tb in various musical portraits. VanHemert's tone is a complete joy, rich and full of texture while relaxed and bel canto. Unsurprisingly the most endearing tunes are the collection of duets, as he goes mano a mano with Nash on the feisty "Softly As In A Morning... read more
Lincoln Goines - The Art of the Bass Choir
by Chris Jisi, Bass Magazine (feature)
Consider the tenuous realm of multiple basses in music. To this point, brave subterranean-minded souls have sought such settings in all shapes and sizes, and most genres — be it chamber-written pieces, recordings with a host of bassists' parts flown in, or all-star jams at bass events. The outcomes have varied from deep rivers of rich vibrations to, as one top bassist put it, "Sounding like a herd of elephants trying to fit through a doorway... read more
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