Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Ben Patterson Jazz Orchestra - Mad Scientist Music
by Dick Metcalf, Contemporary Fusion Reviews
Brilliantly balanced jazz sophistication Ben Patterson Jazz Orchestra - MAD SCIENTIST MUSIC:
This album is one of the most brilliantly balanced jazz albums I've ever listened to. If you're craving the ultimate in hip, you'll find the 7:23 "The Mixup" fills that bill very nicely... unpredictable, yet totally accessible... you'll find yourself grooving right along on every notel
From my perspective, it was (unquestionably) the 6:27 closer,... read more
George Colligan - The Endless Mysteries
by Dave Sumner, emusic
Jazz Picks of the Week - Engaging piano trio recording from the trio of pianist Colligan, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Plenty of modern twists and turns, but nothing that will turn the old-school fans off. While not breaking new ground, familiar territory is explored with an inventive frame of mind, resulting in straight-ahead music that comes from all kinds of nifty... read more
Chuck Owen & ReSurgence - Magic Light
by George W Harris, Jazz Weekly
Playing keyboard, piano, accordion and hammered dulcimer, Chuck Owen creates rural Cumberland Gap tones with a team of Sara Caswell/vi Jack Wilkins/sax, Corey Christiansen/g, Mark Neuenschwander/dr, Danny Gottlieb-Matt Wilson/dr, guest vocalist Kate McGarry/voc and a cameo horn section. The feel is a mix of Nashville and Tedeschi-Trucks with McGarry rich and bluesy around the slide guitar on "Spinning Wheel" and rural on the open plains on... read more
Alex Graham - The Good Life
by David Franklin, JazzTimes April 2006
Altoist Alex Graham's The Good Life is easy-going, straightahead post-Coltrane hard bop executed with skill by all involved. Although released in late 2005, it was recorded less than three years after Graham's 1995 debut, Countdown. And it, too, includes Rick Roe on piano. This time, however the instrumentation is a basic quartet, and the bassist and drummer are the veterans Rodney Whitaker and Joe Strasser.
While the nicely varied program... read more
Les DeMerle - Gypsy Rendezvous, Vol. 2
by Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
Les DeMerle and his wife, vocalist Bonnie Eisele, released a previous album of Gypsy jazz-inspired pieces back in 2009 that showed some hints of greatness when DeMerle and Eisele were able to combine effectively with their Gypsy jazz counterparts, and a bit of musical confusion when they weren't able to meet in the middle. Here, the two factions work together much more cleanly. Where DeMerle and Eisele had a tendency toward power in the past,... read more
Phil Kelly - Convergence Zone
by Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
From longtime television, film, and commercial arranger Phil Kelly comes Convergence Zone, his first album as a leader. Since a relocation to the
Pacific Northwest in 1998, Kelly has worked with a number of regional jazz figures, culminating in the grouping of the NW Prevailing Winds big band
playing here. The album is full of works of big-band majesty, able to emulate the high points of Woody Herman and Count Basie with ease as well... read more
Piet Verbist - Zygomatik
by Dave Sumner, All About Jazz
Zygomatik has the fiery groove of classic hard bop, but it's not that simple. There is a rock attitude to this album, and it's got a Motown sway. This is the kind of album that can be pointed to as a celebration of jazz and an album that will be liked by people for whom jazz really ain't their thing. It's an album with complex elements and modulating sounds, but which hits the ears with a seamless cohesion.
These are the characteristics... read more
Geof Bradfield - Our Roots
by Hobart Taylor, KUCI, Irvine, CA
This tribute to the blues... not the Chicago macho variety, but the deeply spiritual Texas blues of Leadbelly and Blind Willie Johnson is celebrated by the likes of tenor saxophonist Bradfield, trumpeter Marquis Hill, Joel Adams on trombone, Clark Sommers, bassist, and Dana Hall, drums and percussion. I mention them all because this a truly an ensemble, a communion of spirits bringing their own individual talents to stellar performances of... read more
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