Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Ben Thomas Tango Project - The Hat with the Grin and the Chuckle
by Thierry De Clemensat, Paris Move
5 STARS Ben Thomas and the Future of the Bandoneon: A Cultural Mirage in Motion.
Astor Piazzolla didn't merely master the bandoneon, he redrew its boundaries. In sound, in form, in phrasing, he etched into musical history an invisible yet indelible rulebook, shaping what the instrument was and what it could be. For decades, those contours held firm, as musicians followed the trail Piazzolla had blazed with reverence, if not... read more
Benjamin Boone - The Poets Are Gathering
by John Murph, Downbeat (Hot Box)
3 1/2 STARS The Poets Are Gathering is Benjamin Boone's most ambitious recording yet, one where he recruits a superb arsenal of poets who unravel their works with razor-sharp conviction and clarity. The marriage of jazz and poetry can invite as much scorn as it does celebration, perhaps stemming from spoken-word recitations overpowering middling music or accompaniment overcompensating for lackluster verses. But when deployed by Boone,... read more
Paul Marinaro - Mood Ellington
by D. Glenn Daniels, The Jazz Page
The two-album release by vocalist Paul Marinaro, Mood Ellington, offers a luscious journey through the legendary songbook of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Marinaro's warm, resonant voice glides along rich musical landscapes crafted by thirteen top-tier arrangers, including Alan Broadbent, John Clayton and Bill Cunliffe, spanning intimate quartet settings to expansive string-and-horn orchestras. Supported by his Chicago rhythm core of... read more
Benjamin Boone with the Ghana Jazz Collective - Joy
by Benjamin Kirk, Fresno State College of Arts & Humanities
It was hot! It was the summer of 2018 in the city of Accra, about 400 miles north of the equator, and Benjamin Boone and the Ghana Jazz Collective had gathered in the UVSL recording studio — a white concrete building down one of the many dirt side roads. Even with the high-tech equipment, to get clean recordings, the studio had to turn off the air conditioning during recording sessions.
The heat and humidity was unbearable. Between... read more
Nnenna Freelon - Time Traveler
by Nate Chinen, WBGO
On Time Traveler, her first album in more than a decade, Nnenna Freelon considers the passage of time through the prism of personal loss. The album is a tribute to the memory of her husband of 40 years, noted architect Phil Freelon, who died in 2019.
Among the more emotional expressions on the album is this cover of "Time in a Bottle," a posthumous No. 1 hit for singer-songwriter Jim Croce. With a sharp band arrangement by her pianist, Miki... read more
Paul Marinaro - Mood Ellington
by Thierry De Clemensat, Paris Move
4-STARS In an era when most jazz vocalists seem to chase innovation through phrasing acrobatics or pop-inflected crossovers, Paul Marinaro's new double album feels almost radical in its restraint. The Chicago baritone approaches Duke Ellington's canon not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing songbook, reimagined through thirteen of today's leading arrangers, yet rendered with a reverence that evokes the golden age of the American... read more
Affinity Trio - New Outlook
by Scott Yanow, LA Jazz Scene
In 2022, the Affinity Trio (which is comprised of trumpeter Eric Jacobson, pianist Pamela York, and bassist Clay Schaub), recorded their debut recording as a group: Hindsight. New Outlook has the same Chicago-based musicians (who contributed one original apiece) returning to the studio to perform their new material, four standards, and two lesser-known but worthy numbers.
Their music is a lively brand of straight-ahead jazz played with joy... read more
Thomas Marriott - Romance Language
by Nigel Jarrett, Jazz Journal (London)
Jazz might be called the art of theme and variations, the art applying as much to the theme as the way a musician plays around with it. Everyone knows the themes, the tunes, whether written by a jazz composer/musician or someone working in a showbiz area considered not unadjacent. But rarely does anyone devote as much attention to the tune as unadorned entity as trumpeter Thomas Marriott does on this generally slow-tempo album.
If there is... read more
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