Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Marcos Varela - San Ygnacio
by Rotcod Zzaj, Improvijazzation
Wow! What an extreme change of pace... from Klezmer/tuba-led, to a bass-led group in full jazz mode on a debut album that will simply stun your aural appendages... you'll think you're in one of those smokey back-room clubs at 3:00 am as you listen to the beautiful synchronicity of Marcos's bass on tunes like the 6:11 high-energy opener, "I Should Care"... your ears (& your whole body, in fact) will thrill to Marcos's original "Colinas de Santa... read more
Josh Nelson - Exploring Mars
by Carol Banks Weber, AXS
Josh Nelson's known in L.A. as an in-demand sideman and session player for jazz vocalists like Sara Gazarek ("Blossom & Bee") and Kathleen Grace ("No Place To Fall"). He often takes over the show, suspending vocal animation, with his imaginative comps and classically induced solos that seek to beautify the story without over-embellishing. But he is also a surprising solo artist with a universal language all his own, as fans of his albums... read more
Nnenna Freelon - Beneath the Skin
by Jim Motavalli, THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD
Singer Nnenna Freelon has long shown she knows her way around the Great American Songbook (she's recorded tributes to Billie holiday and Stevie Wonder), but on her newly released 12th album, Beneath the Skin, the tunes, many of them poignant ballads, are all hers, with several celebrating women in many colors. On this straight-ahead acoustic affair—with an unusual instrumentation of cello, trombone and guitar plus piano trio—Freelon proves... read more
Michael Zilber - Originals for the Originals
by Robbie Gerson, Audiophile Audition
5-STARS Saxophonist Michael Zilber has an unusual geographic history. He was born in Vancouver, Canada before moving to Boston as a teenager. He moved to New York and worked with Sonny Sitt, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Liebman, Dave Douglas, Rachel Z and Narada Michael Walden among many. While In New York, he recorded two critically acclaimed albums, The Heretic and Stranger In Brooklyn as a sole band leader. But his career has been anchored... read more
Chris Walden Big Band - No Bounds
by Brenton Plourde, www.jazzreview.com
Hailing from Germany, Chris Walden has combined the two elements of European big band with classic American big band to release a great album.
What really stands out here are the two tracks "People Will Say We're In Love" and "Smile." Both are sung by vocalist Tierney Sutton, the Milwaukee born, Los Angeles transplant who really brings those two songs to life. The album starts off with Walden's version of the David Foster 2006 Winter Olympic... read more
Benjamin Boone | Philip Levine - The Poetry of Jazz, Vol. 2
by Andrew Gilbert, San Francisco Classical Voice
In many ways, Fresno saxophonist/composer Benjamin Boone is in the vanguard of the jazz/poetry movement. Last year he released his captivating collaboration with the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Levine, The Poetry of Jazz (Origin), which garnered glowing praise everywhere from The Paris Review to JazzTimes and Downbeat. He followed up in January with The Poetry of Jazz, Vol. 2 (Origin), another musical excursion into the heart of... read more
Roxy Coss - Restless Idealism
by Jack Bowers, All About Jazz
Roxy Coss was inspired to name the second album as leader of her own group Restless Idealism after reading a passage by Hunter S. Thompson in The Rum Diary, in which he weighs the tension between "a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other." While Coss, as a working musician, has wrestled with both sides of that equation, she weighs anchor essentially on the shore of idealism, a point of view that is reflected... read more
Michael Dease - The Other Shoe: The Music of Gregg Hill
by George W Harris, Jazz Weekly
Co-producer Gregg Hill has his compositions interpreted by the bold trombonist Michael Dease and the team of Virginal MacDonald/cl, Geoffrey Keezer-Luther Alison/p, Liany Mateo/b Colleen Clark/dr and a handful of guests. The addition of MacDonald's clarinet makes for rich ideas, as she's featured on the quirky "Wake Up Call" and her vibrato seduces on "Shorty's Tune". Dease has a horn that is big and brassy, going up and sown the scales on "The... read more
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