Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Bobby Broom - Bobby Broom Plays for Monk
by Stuart Broomer, All About Jazz.com
There's something almost contradictory about Monk compositions: they're insistently individualistic, built on odd chord changes with often minimalist melodies. But as idiosyncratic as they are, they often succeed in bringing out what's best in the musicians playing them, as if those tunes are open to individuality as well as being the product of it. Through the years musicians of wildly divergent styles have approached Monk's music: the piquant... read more
Toby Koenigsberg - Sense
by Birney K. Brown, Audiophile Audition
To summarize this 2006 release first: This is an absolutely superb piano trio delivering a magnificent program. I've listened to this disc numerous times, both on my dedicated home system and in the car. One of my first impressions was how well the group was captured by the engineer. I then noticed that the HDCD indicator light was glowing on my DAC. Although there is no indication in the packaging, this CD is HDCD encoded. One needs not... read more
Purna Loka Ensemble - Metaraga
by George W Harris, Jazz Weekly
A rich mix of Indian strings, percussion and western accessibility takes place on the two violin team of Purnaprajna Bangere and David Balakrishnan on the front line, bassist Jeff Harshbarger and tabla player Amit Kavhekar on this richly hued collection. The evocative tablas lead into a richly textured lilt on "Syzygy" and a more traditional Central Asian drone and harmonics takes place o n"Abhogi Varnam" and the meditative "Fibration." A three... read more
Hal Galper Quartet featuring Jerry Bergonzi - Cubist
by Doug Ramsey, Rifftides
In his album notes, pianist Galper writes that he was unaware of what "an interesting and unique composer" his longtime bass-playing associate Jeff Johnson is. The three pieces that Johnson contributed to Cubist leave no doubt about his writing ability. The title tune plus "Kiwi," "Artists" and "Scene West" give Galper, Johnson and drummer John Bishop plenty of challenging material. They make the most of it. Galper's post-bop credentials with... read more
Free Range Saxophone Quartet - Fireflies
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz
Since inception, the Origin Classical imprint has existed as a stylistic hinge between classical music and jazz. Defying genre definition, Origin Classical's archive should properly be considered simply music?that which defies category. Only a single release, Linda Tsatsanis and John Lenti's And I Remain: Three Love Stories?Music of the Seventeenth Century for Voice and Lute (Origin Classical, 2009), deals with what might be considered the... read more
Tim Jensen - A Mind For The Scenery
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
Red flags flare up when a disc comes in with the tag "eclectic" lurking in the press material. The New Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word as "selecting or made up of what seems best of varied sources." But the word sometimes serves as a shorthand for�in the world of music assessment�unfocused or lacking continuity of vision. Fortunately, multiple reedman Tim Jensen's A Mind for the Scenery holds to the true definition.
The Portland,... read more
David Sills - Down The Line
by Jack Bowers, All About Jazz
One of the great things about jazz is that there's always room for persuasive new voices, especially those who've mastered the vocabulary and know how to swing. Saxophonist David Sills, now in his mid-thirties, qualifies easily on both counts, as he shows consistently on Down the Line, evidently his second album as a leader of his own group, although Sills has recorded with a number of other first-rank musicians.
Sills has enlisted a clever... read more
Mimi Fox Organ Trio - One for Wes
by Thomas Houbron, Couleurs Jazz (Paris)
It's January 2023, and for guitarists, from amateurs to the very best, this is a year that cannot be insignificant...
Indeed, on March 6th of this year, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the greatest representative of the "six strings" (according to me, but I am not alone): Wes Montgomery! Every jazz guitarist has the master's work as a shepherd's star. I always thought that Django had invented jazz guitar and that Wes... read more
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