Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Giacomo Gates - Centerpiece
by Christopher Loudon, Jazz Times
Another extraordinary vocal stylist we never hear enough from is Giacomo Gates. He's often and accurately credited as a contemporary Eddie Jefferson, but with his full bodied baritone and blazing inventiveness, he sounds like the love child of Billy Eckstine and Kurt Elling. As bracing an innovator as he is an interpreter, Gates transforms his third studio album, Centerpiece (Origin), into a cornucopia of delicacies that extends from a smooth,... read more
Corey Christiansen - Dusk
by John Gilbreath, Jazz at the Library (Anacortes)
Guitarist Corey Christiansen has an innate skill at bridging traditional Americana music with jazz. This wonderful recording is as much a showcase for his emotive and fluid band, as it is for Christiansen's prodigious chops and laser sharp focus. As a suite of original compositions, plus one traditional, "Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby," Dusk is evocative of feelings, people, and places, both imagined and... read more
Bad Luck - Four
by Gregg Daniel Miller, Free Jazz Blog
***** (Five Stars)
As Bad Luck, Neil Welch (tenor saxophone & live electronics) and Chris Icasiano (drums) have played roughly 60 shows a year for over 10 years. Their latest CD out on Origin Records, Four, displays the mature, complex seamlessness which comes from two players who know what the other is about. Welch's dexterous chops atop his use of drone and chorus pedals (plus studio work by Randal Dunn) combine with Icasiano's tom-heavy... read more
Joachim Mencel - Brooklyn Eye
by Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz
4 1/2 STARS Growing up under the weight of communism in Poland in the late '60s and early '70s, Joachim Mencel dreamed of the freedoms and wonders of America. Stateside relatives sent food parcels, offering him his first tastes of Hershey's chocolate and the inviting aromas of Maxwell House coffee; and Polish public radio station Trójka filled his ears with jazz, gifting the sounds of Miles Davis, among other greats. By the time Mencel... read more
Jeff Johnson - The Art of Falling
by Jon Davis, Expose
Bassist Jeff Johnson is one of the regulars in the Origin Records stable, and these two releases see him as leader, first of a trio with drummer Billy Mintz and reedman Hans Teuber, then with a quartet, adding pianist Randy Porter. Most of the selections on both are Johnson originals, with a few covers (Wayne Shorter, Henry Mancini, even Glenn Miller) thrown in. Johnson seems to favor a relatively free setting, using the composed tunes as... read more
Hal Galper & the Youngbloods - Live at the Cota Jazz Festival
by Hobart Taylor, KUCI, Irvine, CA
Pianist Galper is an educator and mentor. Previously with Chet Baker, Cannonball Adderly, Sam Rivers,(1960's) and Phil Woods (1980's) he has been fronting trios and writing scholarly articles since the 90's while teaching at University. On this release he has found gifted young performers and improvisers in drummer, David Frazier, bassist Dean Torrey, and the uninhibited Nathan Bellott on alto sax. In fact the sax drum duets that occasionally... read more
Florian Hoefner - Coldwater Stories
by Dave Sumner, Bird is the Worm
Florian Hoefner knows how to work a melody. His 2012 release Songs Without Words was one of the very best things to get released that year, and it was in no small part a result of the pianist's vibrant display of melodicism. Two releases since then did nothing to diminish that reputation.
This 2016 performance at the Bremen, Germany venue Sendesaal provides the opportunity to hear that melodic talent unfold in a solo setting. Live and all... read more
Ben Patterson Jazz Orchestra - Mad Scientist Music
by George W Harris, Jazz Weekly
Composer and trombonist Ben Patterson puts together a modern sounding big band through some swinging originals. The charts give a hint of Count Basie, as the sections jab from the side like a middleweight boxer on the Rat Packish "The Mixup" featuring the tenor saxes of Tedd Baker and Xavier Perez". Likewise, the reeds are velvety and brass polished as they warmly frame Patterson's trombone on "Anne Marie" and they create bold declarations... read more
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