Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Affinity Trio - Hindsight
by Paul Abella, WDCB (Chicago)
It should come as no surprise that the Affinity Trio sounds as good as they do, considering their regular gig at The Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. The tightness and telepathic interplay heard throughout their debut album, Hindsight, only comes through playing together on a consistent basis. Trumpeter Eric Jacobson, bassist Clay Schaub and pianist Pamela York make some excellent music in this seemingly sparse trio. What's really interesting is that... read more
Big Neighborhood - Neighbors
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
This sax/bass/guitar/drums quartet struck me on first listen as a group that Steely Dan might hire for a recording session. The sound is crisp and clean, modern, with sharp lines and well-defined, ear-grabbing tangents. And democratic, as opposed to a sax-in-front-of-a-rhythm section affair. Then I heard some Pat Metheny shadings when guitarist David White brings the guitar synthesizer into the mix; but the sound is friskier than Metheny's, the... read more
Xavier Lecouturier - Carrier
by Paul Rauch, Earshot Jazz
21-year-old drummer/composer Xavier Lecouturier has been making a definite impression on the jazz scene in Seattle. As a student at Cornish College of the Arts, he made his way to jam sessions, and acquainted himself with the best players in town, eventually landing in the quintet of trumpeter Thomas Marriott. His debut album as band-leader, Carrier is a collection of compositions forged during this period of rapid self-discovery.
Lecouturier... read more
Joachim Mencel - Brooklyn Eye
by Mateusz Kołodziej, AxunArts (Poland)
Joachim Mencel grew up in a country where at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the next decade, people did not bask in luxury (although part of the society probably did not complain). The constant fight for freedom, an attempt to overthrow the power controlled from Moscow, dreams of a better life - preferably in the United States, which were presented as an almost mythical land from where Polish families received parcels from time to... read more
John Moulder - Bifrost
by Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune
The Green Mill Jazz Club doesn't usually fall to a hush on a rowdy Friday night, but it did as midnight approached.
With guitarist John Moulder leading an inspired quintet, the music-making often achieved a quiet serenity, bringing a capacity audience to a whisper. There's simply no way to converse when music of such profundity and grace is unfolding.
Moulder has been a leading figure in Chicago jazz for a couple of decades, largely thanks... read more
Kelly Brand Nextet - The Door
by Brad Walseth, www.jazzchicago.net
It sometimes astounds me, when I hear local musicians whose talent is world class, and yet they are perhaps not very well known outside the boundaries of Chicago, although they should be. Case in point is pianist/composer Kelly Brand, who is known to the jazz fans of Chicago, but deserves a much wider audience based on her stellar playing and composition skills. If there is any justice in the world, her new nextet recording "The Door" will open... read more
Les DeMerle - Cookin' At The Corner, Volume 1
by Tom Hull, Jazz Prospecting
The setup is piano-bass-drums plus singer, but the leader is the drummer, and he sings some too. In fact, DeMerle and Eisele pair up like Louis Prima and Keely Smith, even if they play it straight most of the time. (But not all the time: DeMerle sings one about a sailor who comes home after three years to find his wife has a new baby named Bennie. Where'd he come from, the sailor wonders? "Bennie's From Heaven.") Eisele doesn't enter until the... read more
Nnenna Freelon - Beneath the Skin
by Herb Boyd, DownBeat
There's an unrelieved lament to Nnenna Freelon's latest release, and only occasionally do the songs break from a slow, mournful narrative.
The expressive range of Freelon's voice — and its versatility from tune to tune evokes Aminata Moseka (Abbey Lincoln), Nina Simone and Billie Holiday — soars brilliantly on "Changed," but she quickly settles back into a gloomy sphere, almost tearful on "Widow's Song." On "Dark and Lovely," her vocal... read more
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