Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Dave Slonaker Big Band - Convergency
by George W Harris, Jazz Weekly
Big band leader Dave Slonaker brings together a collection of some of the West Coast's top session studs to interpret his charts and tunes on this collection of mostly originals. The only cover is a velvety rendition of "I Had The Craziest Dream" that gives trumpeter Wayne Bergeron a chance to give a rich aria. Many of the tunes have an Aaron Copland type of majesty, with rich section work on the swinging "Convergency" or elegiac harmonies on "A... read more
Emi Meyer - Monochrome
by Misa Murohashi, North American Post
Tokyo-based singer/songwriter Emi Meyer released her first U.S. album Monochrome in September with Origin Records, a Seattle-based jazz and classical music record label. For her debut U.S. recording, Emi combines music from a set recorded in Paris with Belgian pianist Eric Legnini's French quartet, and new originals recorded in Seattle and featuring guitarist Dan Balmer and pianist Dawn Clement. Born to a Japanese mother and American father, Emi... read more
Laurie Antonioli and Richie Beirach - Varuna
by Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz
This absorbing release - an album that's something of a sequel to The Duo Sessions (Nabel Records, 2005) - finds vocalist Laurie Antonioli and pianist Richie Beirach painting one divine musical tableau after another. There are vivid numbers that place Antonioli's seraphic vocals atop Beirach's dense and full-flavored chords, spare readings that allow fragility and the human condition to come to the surface, and standards shaped and molded to... read more
Piet Verbist - Suite Réunion
by Bernard Lefèvre, JazzHalo (Belgium)
Piet Verbist is a passionate contrabassist who is full of energy and inspiration with what he writes in an authentic richly varied style of electric grooves (Zygomatic) to modern jazz (Mamutrio).
For his new project Suite Réunion with entirely his own work, he chose a different acoustic composition. This Piet Verbist Quartet (PVQ) has been on many stages in previous years and was enthusiastically received every time. In February... read more
John Wojciechowski - Focus
by Paul Abella, WDCB
Let's start this week with Chicago based saxophonist John Wojciechowski and his new album Focus on Origin Records. He teams up with a monster of a rhythm section, pianist Ryan Cohan, bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer Dana Hall. Wojciechowski's a pretty aggressive player on the tenor, and from the get-go on this disc, it's clear he's not planning on taking any prisoners. With such a sympathetic rhythm section, he tears through every nook and... read more
Hal Galper - Live at the Berlin Philharmonic, 1977
by Raul da Gama, JazzdaGama
There can hardly be a better occasion to celebrate the unfettered energy of "live" music than this 1977 performance of the Hal Galper Quintet. In fact, it would never be hyperbolic to suggest that it stands out as one of the greatest "live" performances by a group of musicians...ever. It is dark - beautifully so - and the music takes you to another world altogether. It is a world full of mysterious depths, expectations, doubts, and hopes. It... read more
David Friesen - This Light Has No Darkness, Volume 1
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
4-STARS In 2020, David Friesen, an American jazz artist with Ukrainian roots, released his masterpiece, Testimony (Origin Records). The set was an orchestral, spiritual soundscape featuring Friesen's jazz quartet and the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine. Recorded in Kyiv, in December of 2018—about three years before Russia invaded Ukraine—the music was a majestic testament to Friesen's faith, embracing tranquility... read more
Mark Taylor - Spectre
by Andrew Gilbert, Seattle Times
By taking his time and letting his music develop at its own pace, Mark Taylor has become one of the essential players on the Seattle jazz scene.
While steadily pursuing his own musical vision, the alto saxophonist has toiled fruitfully as a sideman, contributing to more than half a dozen excellent ensembles. From long-running institutions like the Jim Knapp Orchestra (which plays the first Monday of every month at the Seattle Drum School) to... read more
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