Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Christopher Icasiano - Provinces
by Georges Tonla Briquet, Jazz Halo (Belgium)
The American label Origin is mainly specialized in jazz based on tradition. With 'Provinces' they radically deviate from that course. You could say a kind of "close encounters of the unknown kind". The man who is responsible for this alone: multi-instrumentalist Christopher Icasiano.
The continuously drumming drums create an uncomfortable feeling from the start. With somewhat haunting Hans Zimmer soundscapes and relentlessly dark bass... read more
Les DeMerle - Gypsy Rendezvous, Vol. 1
by David Franklin, Cadence
Drummer Les DeMerle's long career has included playingwith Harry James for a dozen years, fronting his own Fusiongroup for a time, and more recently leading various straight-ahead VOL. 1 ensembles. Gypsy Pacific, comprising violin, two guitars, and bass, is a unique Jazz band based in Maui, Hawaii. DeMerle happened tohear the quartet in a club there and one thing led to another. Many of the tracks do suggest the famous duo of violinist Stephane... read more
Peterson-Kohler Collective - Winter Colors
by Peter Hoetjes, All About Jazz
4-STARS The Peterson-Kohler Collective is a marriage of both familial and Northwestern musicians. John Bishop, drummer and co-founder of Origin Records, unites guitarist Dave Peterson with his cousins, Lee and Rob Kohler, who play piano and bass, respectively. Also joining the group is the versatile saxophonist Brent Jensen. From the sense of isolation evoked by the album's cover to the music contained within, their debut recording is... read more
Maddie Vogler - While We Have Time
by Scott Yanow, DownBeat
Alto-saxophonist Maddie Vogler's While We Have Time (Origin, 50:53 ***1/2) defies expectations a bit. Some of her music is dedicated to her grandmother who left Cuba for Chicago with her family when she was 16. While the opening number, "The Need To Be," is Latin-flavored jazz, the other pieces are modern hard bop with just subtle hints at Vogler's Latin background. She has an original sound on alto and takes fluent solos throughout this outing... read more
Dave Slonaker Big Band - Shifty Paradigms
by Jack Bowers, All About Jazz
4 1/2 STARS While Los Angeles-based composer and arranger Dave Slonaker's paradigms may be shifty, his all-star big band is about as forthright as one could wish. On Shifty Paradigms, his third recording fronting the band, Slonaker guides his peerless eighteen-member ensemble through its paces on a dynamic and always-swinging program that encompasses seven of his stellar original compositions and the venerable standard, "Bye Bye... read more
Amit Friedman - Unconditional Love
by JEAN-CLAUDE VANTROYEN, Le Soir (Belgium)
A jazz of today which swings, which grooves, with enthusiasm and who does not ask too many questions. In quartet with Tom Oren at the piano, Gilad Abro on double bass and Yonatan Rosen on drums, plus an oud, a singer and a singer for two pieces. Everything is from Friedman's pen, except "Junk" by Paul McCartney. And if it is sometimes nostalgic, with the memory of his father, who died in 2017, to whom the album is dedicated, the album is marked... read more
Hal Galper Quartet featuring Jerry Bergonzi - Cubist
by Jim Motavalli, New York City Jazz Record
The Cubist movement, led by Pablo Picasso, came out of Paris in the 1910s-20s and rendered the human form as a series of jagged geometric forms. The rubato approach taken by pianist Hal Galper, who turns 80 this month, on his new album embraces similar liberties. Cubist was recorded live before a studio audience at the Gill and Tommy LiPuma Center for Creative Arts in Cleveland, Galper enlarging his usual trio palette with tenor saxophonist... read more
Benjamin Boone | Philip Levine - The Poetry of Jazz
by Rotcod Zzaj, Improvijazzation Nation
Not everyone who reads my reviews know that I got my start in "show business" doing live spoken-word, so Phil's excellent poetry is a total treat for me... it's earned a permanent place on my iPhone (yikes, I'm running outta' space)... Benjamin's hip & silky sax on tunes like "The Unknowable" is what convinced me it had to be there... there are a whole HOST of other players on this fantastic CD, so long a list, in fact, that you'll need to go to... read more
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