Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Peter Epstein and Idée Fixe - Abstract Realism
by Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
Idee Fixe's method to music creation is a particularly improvised route. Rather than using composed sets, they improvise the backbone of jazz collectively. However, they go further -- they had no prior discussions, no (or rare) starting points from which to build. They simply start exploring ideas together while recording, leading to a particularly free format of jazz. The pieces on Abstract Realism tend to start out sparse, with a tone or two... read more
Bill Anschell - Shifting Standards
by Carol Banks Weber, Festival Peak
I'm a Bill Evans type of listener. For me, a musician's touch says more than a fantastic cavalcade of impressive, overly complicated notes, impossibly juxtaposed against a harried orchestra of one. If you can make me feel down to my bones, you've got me.
Seattle's beloved jazz pianist Bill Anschell is cool, because he can do both: move and impress, touch and flash, tone and stack — often on a forgettable, throwaway standard everybody... read more
Jaiman Crunk - Encounters
by Ian Patterson, All About Jazz
Seattle-based guitarist Jaiman Crunk hasn't taken half measures on Encounters, his debut as leader. In addition to marshalling over 20 top jazz musicians?cherry picked for specific roles?Crunk employs fourteen brass, woodwind and string musicians from the Seattle Symphony Orchestra on half the compositions. These four numbers in particular underline Crunk's notable compositional and arranging skills and he succeeds, as few do, in marrying the... read more
Paul Marinaro - Mood Ellington
by C. Michael Bailey, Wild Mercury Rhythm
While too early to call Mood Ellington the album Paul Marinaro has been working up to all his life, it is not too early to call it his finest and most completely realized release among his previous albums that include Without a Song (Self Produced, 2013), One Night In Chicago (Self Produced, 2015), Not Quite Yet (Myrtle Records, 2022), The Bowie Project (Origin Records, 2023).
These previous releases had a... read more
Jordan VanHemert - Survival of the Fittest
by Editor, Modern Drummer
Lewis Nash has never played a "bad" note in his life, and that's why he's on so many records. He proves this again on saxophonist Jordan VanHemert's third recording as a leader. Whether it's Nash's dancing brushes on "Tread Lightly," his intro and rollicking five-minute duet with VanHemert on "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise," or his uber-musical solo on "Milyang Arirang," everything Lewis Nash plays works to perfection. Listen to Lewis Nash's... read more
John Bishop - Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit
by Adam Greenburg, All Music Guide
A quartet album of a handful of Seattle's top jazz players stemming from a regular weekly session in a small ale house. Much of the ensemble is the same as on Now...Here...This, though Hans Teuber's sax replaces Mike Denny's guitar. More notable, however, is the departure in tone. Where Now...Here...This was warm and relaxed, Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit is aroused, challenging. The two lead saxes steal much of the show, running through chord... read more
Anthony Branker & Other Ways of Knowing - Manifestations of a Diasporic Groove & Spirit
by Editor, Modern Drummer
I am always intrigued and interested when a composer or arranger leads a recording date without playing an instrument of the recording. Composer and
Musical Director Dr. Anthony Branker is one such composer, and he has created a recording inspired by voices and perspectives representing communities that have been overlooked or deemed unimportant. Branker's music is very modern and very composed, at times reminding me of the music of Andrew... read more
Hadley Caliman - Gratitude
by Doug Ramsey, Rifftides
I wrote in Jazz Matters about Caliman in a 1979 performance with Freddie Hubbard's band:
As the evening progressed, Caliman's playing took on much of the intensity and coloration of John Coltrane's work, but he is a more directly rhythmic player than Coltrane was toward the end of his life and from that standpoint is reminiscent of Dexter Gordon. Whatever his influences, Caliman is an inventive and cheerful soloist.
Caliman recently... read more
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