Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Robby Ameen - Live at the Poster Museum
by Jack Bowers, All About Jazz
4-STARS Unlike some drummer-led albums, wherein it is hard to determine who is actually piloting the ship, there are no doubts about who is in charge on Live at the Poster Museum—and that would be none other than Robby Ameen whose sharp and forceful timekeeping enlivens the heart and soul of every number, lending them a sizable measure of their exuberance and swagger.
That is especially meaningful considering that Ameen is traveling... read more
Mark Colby - Reflections
by George Kanzler, JazzTimes
Stan Getz is tenor saxophonist Mark Colby's stylistic model, and on previous recordings his debt to Getz has been obvious. It's not a bad model - everyone doesn't have to sound like Coltrane - especially when you, like Colby, have a strong lyrical bent and can inhabit a ballad like Johnny Mandel's "Close Enough for Love" or Cole Porter's "So in Love" as convincingly as Colby does here. But he also tries to change things up a bit, so the... read more
Anne Drummond - Revolving
by Ric Bang, Jazz Scan
Seattle-born Anne Drummond's first instrument wasn't a flute. It was a recorder: a first for many children because of the relative ease with which simple melodies can be played. Introduced in medieval times, the instrument remains quite popular today. As often is the case, the piano followed; that was her primary instrument when she entered New York's Manhattan School of Music at age 18. She also had replaced the recorder with a flute by that... read more
Kelly Brand Nextet - The Door
by Tim Gault, Chicago Jazz.com
Ding Dong. The ring of a doorbell starts the latest offering from Chicago pianist Kelly Brand. This noted Chicago mainstay here provides an invitation for us to hear a set of mostly new compositions from her pen. A couple of other cuts on the CD also employ some sort of sound effects to briefly frame the mood of these tunes. So we are offered a clever (but thankfully not kitschy) concept to draw us initially across the threshold. Once you enter,... read more
Storms/Nocturnes - VIA
by John Kelman, All About Jazz.com
Virtuosity can, when it's the raison d'�tre, be an impediment; when it's a foundation, in service of the music, it can be liberating. Storms/Nocturnes was initially the brainchild of Tim Garland but, after first convening as a subset of the sextet on the closing track to the British saxophonist/composer's Made By Walking (Stretch, 2000), ultimately evolved into a more egalitarian working trio. Both Storms/Nocturnes (Sirocco, 2001) and... read more
Jeff Johnson - Suitcase
by Tim Willcox, Jazz Society of Oregon
A stalwart of the Pacific Northwest jazz scene, Johnson is a veteran bassist who seems comfortable in just about any surrounding. With this newest effort, Johnson surrounds himself with like-minded musicians in an effort to record songs he had written over the course of the past 20 years while traveling around the world playing music. In an effort to keep the session "accidental," the musicians didn't rehearse prior to recording, instead letting... read more
Jeff Johnson - Tall Stranger
by Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
For his fourth album as a leader, bassist Jeff Johnson sets an exploratory course. On Tall Stranger, Johnson works with sax player Hans Teuber (with a bit of a free jazz bent of his own) and drummer Billy Mintz. The trio spends a lot of its time, however, seemingly working less as a trio and more as a collection of three independent players who happen to be in the same room. This isn't accidental, or an effect of the group not working well... read more
Jordan VanHemert - Survival of the Fittest
by Fred Bouchard, The New York City Jazz Record
The laconic Japanese adage "Fall seven times, stand up eight" underpins a subtext behind the title of Jordan VanHemert's fifth leader date, Survival of the Fittest. A hearty, adept, good-humored tenor saxophonist, the 30ish Korean-born Michigander here re-assembles, with trombonist-producer Michael Dease, the sextet of their slightly elder peers that, in last year's Deep In The Soil (Topic), first examined the resilience, self-reliance and... read more
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