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
Corey Christiansen - Outlaw Tractor
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz
The reason behind Corey Christiansen's clinically precise guitar style is his experience with Mel Bay Guitar Instruction. He is fluent in all guitar styles, which fully informs his recording and performing persona. His previous recording, Roll With It (Origin, 2008), employing the same band as on the present Outlaw Tractor, was a sleek funk machine updating the soul jazz of the 1960s. Previous to that, Awakening (Mel Bay,... read more
Michael Waldrop Big Band - Time Within Itself
by Dave Gregg, The Jazz Reader
Time Within Itself, Michael Waldrop's first big band CD, is a joyous, rip-roaring ride that charts a rollicking course through diverse musical styles, ranging from jazz fusion to the very best of big band jazz.
At the helm on drums, Waldrop is the indomitable anchor of the ensemble, a master of kinetic energy who plays both authoritatively and with a rare symmetrical beauty. Creating a rhythmic force that is high-octane yet beautifully... read more
Gregg Keplinger / Reuben Radding / Daniel Carter - Language
by Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
Alto saxophonist Daniel Carter is an avant-gardist who can also play thoughtfully and with logical development. On Language, he performs five group originals with bassist Reuben Radding and drummer Gregg Keplinger that are mostly free improvisations. The music starts at its most intense with "Speak Glow," evolves from being introspective to fiery on the nearly 20-minute title cut, is passionate on "Aphasia," and finds the group playing a... read more
Hal Galper - Live at the Berlin Philharmonic, 1977
by Editor, BBC Music Magazine
5-STARS This two-disc release has come about as a result of Galper sifting through his archives a couple years ago. It was a session well worth rescuing. Although dating back 44 years, it recalls when Galper was already established as a highly-regarded player, almost part of the jazz-scene furniture and thus sometimes unfairly overlooked. This concert (plus one track recorded just a few months later in January 1978) finds him on... read more
Metropolitan Jazz Octet - The Bowie Project
by C. Michael Bailey, Wild Mercury Rhythm
Like a melodic fragment, a foretelling leitmotif teasing with more to come, Chicago vocalist Paul Marinaro's recent Not Quite Yet (Myrtle Records, 2022) included two David Bowie compositions: "5:15 The Angels Have Gone" and "No Plan." Inclusion here pushed Marinaro's second studio recording over the top of a creative peak for the singer in preparation for an even greater one. Released a little too close for comfort to the release of... read more
Darrell Grant - Truth And Reconciliation
by Dick Crockett, Bopn' Dicks 10 picks June 2007
Darrell Grant is a student of jazz, of life and multiple incarnations, a professor, a side man and scholarly to aspiring to young jazz musicians, which means there's a process at work, from an evolving artist of multiple musical styles to an eventual teacher to spread the word, the joy, to play jazz. Grant has developed that purpose from experience, as pianist for Betty Carter and Chico Freeman and scores of cd's featuring him as a leader. Geri... read more
John Bishop - Antwerp
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
4 1/2 STARS - BEST ALBUMS OF 2023 Drummer John Bishop, the guy who runs Seattle's Origin Records, does not often put out records under his own name. There was Nothing If Not Something (Origin Records) in 2005, review here, and then nothing until the disc at hand, 2023's Antwerp. Not that Bishop has avoided the recording studio. He is, as a sideman, in fact quite prolific, sitting in on Hal Galper's string of... read more
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