Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Dave Slonaker Big Band - Convergency
by Troy Dostert, All About Jazz
4-STARS Composer/conductor Dave Slonaker probably won't qualify as "prolific," at least based on recorded output alone, as he spends a lot of his time behind the scenes in film and television workâbut one must appreciate the level of craftsmanship that he brings to his big band projects. His debut release, Intrada (Origin Records, 2014), received a well-earned Grammy nomination, and his sophomore effort is no less accomplished, with... read more
Carlos Vega - Bird's Ticket
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
4-STARS Saxophonist Carlos Vega's band crackles. The sound of "A Confluence in Chi-Town," the opener on his Bird's Ticket recording, has an on-the-edge urgency in its distinctive approach to the standard jazz quintet format - bass/drums/keyboard rhythm section and a trumpet and a saxophone - a line up like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie used.
Vega, a veteran of trumpter/band leader Doc Severinsen's band, sets up, with that... read more
Jeff Johnson - Tall Stranger
by Peter Monaghan, Earshot Jazz
Re-corded back in 2002, Tall Stranger opens with two group improvisations in which the players - Johnson, California drummer Billy Mintz, and treasured Seattle hornman Hans Teuber - feel each other out and enter an oblique, moody realm of light and shadow.
These are three superbly exploratory players. Mintz is a drummer like no other - he measures his attack as if determined to bruise no drumhead unless absolutely necessary; he caresses the... read more
Matt Jorgensen +451 - Hope
by Brian Kidd, North Seattle Herald
With the March 16 release of their latest album, "Hope," Matt Jorgensen+451 stand on the border of nostalgic reflection and future aspiration, peripherally looking back and forward. They pay tribute while propelling original compositions into innovative, cosmic sounds.
Behind the drum kit is Matt Jorgensen, but it is the entire band that is behind this evolving and warm music.
Following "The Road Begins Here" and "Quiet Silence"... read more
David Friesen and Glen Moore - Bactrian
by George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly
Both David Friesen and Glen Moore play bass and piano on this collection of duets and solos. Friesen plays a Hemage bass and Moore a regular acoustic one, and they emphasize the rumbling conversations of the strings on the babbling "Still Waters" and the agile "Caravan." Friesen's piano is pensive with Moore on"Soft as Silk" and when the roles are reversed, a bop feel is created on "Kontrast." Quiet and... read more
Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra - The Endless Search
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
Tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath is highly respected by his peers and by serious listeners, but he isn't well known outside the jazz world in the way that Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane are. He played with those legends and many more. He formed The Heath Brothers in 1975 with his siblings, drummer Albert "Tootie Heath and bassist Percy Heath, and has penned numerous tunes that have become classics, including "CTA" and "Gingerbread... read more
Richard Sussman - Live at Sweet Rhythm
by C. Michael Bailey, 100 Words On...
Pianist Richard Sussman's 1979 quintet recording Free Fall made quite a splash when re-issued in 2002. Sporting trumpeter Tom Harrell and saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, the disc was a hard bop celebration. Break forward 30 years, this same band unites for a live recording at NYC's Sweet Rhythm in 2003 playing a couple of pieces from the earlier recording as well as Tadd Dameron's "Soultrane" and the standard "What's New." the result is a cross... read more
Benjamin Boone - The Poets Are Gathering
by Stephen Graham, Marlbank (UK)
Best so far in 2020... Intense and hard-hitting ... socially and politically conscious, often beautiful, work that will make you think and that never shirks from challenging and confronting societal wrongs in a way that transcends the polemics of the newspaper opinion writers and the power grab of politicians... Boone's vision surpasses all... read more
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