Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Toby Koenigsberg - Sense
by Serena Markstrom, Eugene Register-Guard
Getting a song stuck in your head can be frustrating, but imagine if you believed your future
as a musician depended on getting it out.
As a graduate student, Toby Koenigsberg realized his challenge as a pianist was to stop
theorizing and intellectualizing and start playing from his heart instead of his mind.
That's what he was trying to do when his trio released his debut as a leader, "Push," last year
and that's what he believes he... read more
Andrew Rathbun Large Ensemble - The Atwood Suites
by Paul Rauch, All About Jazz
4-STARS The mingling of jazz music and poetry is not a new concept. It has always been an amiable, yet at times, uncomfortable fit. From a verse standpoint, it is in many ways liberating. While most vocalized lyrics and spoken word forms rely on rhyme to speak to cadence and rhythm, free verse poetry liberates the narrative from the confinements of structure, and much like an improvising instrumentalist, takes spoken language into a... read more
Laurie Antonioli - Songs of Shadow, Songs of Light
by Raul da Gama, Jazz da Gama
Attempting to play the repertoire of Thelonious Monk or Herbie Nichols is notoriously difficult. Here is the conundrum: Unless the music is recreated, while staying true to the original; made wholly new, there is a tendency to copy style and content. And then the attempt falls flat with mediocrity. There is that small matter of the stylistic idiosyncrasy of the artists in question. The angular, chopped rhythms of Mr. Monk and the maddeningly... read more
David Friesen Circle 3 Trio - Where the Light Falls
by Mark Klafter, Amazon
At the ripe age of 72 David Friesen has achieved a major breakthrough with Where the Light Falls. He is an artist who has labored intensely and compassionately for a lifetime in the jazz harvest, inspiring and teaching many the joys of music, and he is reaping his bounty now. Joined by his Circle 3 Trio mates Greg Goebel on piano and Charlie Doggett on drums with guitarist Larry Koonse on several tracks, Mr. Friesen has been set free to compose... read more
Benny Powell - Nextep
by Adam Greenburg, All Music Guide
Taking his first steps with the Origin label, longtime trombone sideman Benny Powell takes his own band for a spin, focusing entirely on original compositions from himself and his comrades in arms. The album opens with a nice piece of New Orleans-infused composition that makes full use of Powell's trombone in a second-line form, showing off the horn in a traditionally leading manner, rather than relegating it to a place in a larger ensemble.... read more
Benjamin Boone with the Ghana Jazz Collective - Joy
by Chris M. Slawecki, All About Jazz
Benjamin Boone's set with this band born and grown in Ghana is a genuine cross-cultural jazz Joy.
The seeds of Joy were planted when composer-saxophonist Boone spent a year as a US Fulbright Scholar in Ghana in sabbatical from his professorship at California State University (Fresno), to study the country's music and musical traditions. The music Boone found made him feel at home: "These guys know American jazz inside and out—but with a... read more
Hal Galper - E Pluribus Unum - Live in Seattle
by Ken Dryden, All Music Guide
Hal Galper's working trio with bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer John Bishop has broken free of the typical expectations of a piano trio. Recorded over two days at the 2009 Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle, Galper challenges the crowd to join them in their explorations. The pianist's wonderfully abstract approach to the venerable standard "How Deep Is the Ocean" avoids stating the melody outright and doesn't allow the listener to get used to... read more
Thomas Marriott - Trumpet Ship
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
4-STARS Spontaneity rules. Seattle-based trumpeter Thomas Marriott had a day off from touring with his quartet, so he decided to go into the studio and record an album: Trumpet Ship. His twelfth outing for Origin Records—all of them reaching for the stars, all of them getting there—this quartet album lines up after his stop-you-in-your-tracks gorgeous Romance Language (Origin Records, 2018). A tough act to follow. Marriott and his... read more
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