Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Michael Waldrop Big Band - Time Within Itself
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz
This big band recording is notable for its arranger, Dr. Jack Cooper. Cooper recently released a revelatory Jack Cooper: Mists -Charles Ives For Jazz Orchestra (Planet Arts, 2014), which was the "most recommended" recording at All About Jazz in 2014. Cooper is a professor of music at the University of Memphis and he properly embraces the heritage of that great Southern City. Cooper's arrangements are unique in their brassy "wall-of-sound"... read more
Dan Heck - Compositionality
by Bill Milkowski, JazzTimes
Florida-based guitarist composer Dan Heck takes his time entering the first track of his Origin debut, deferring to trumpeter Thomas Marriott on the funky boogaloo "One for Flo" and laying out entirely. By the time he finally makes his move at the 2:30 mark, his warm, flowing lines and clear articulation immedately reveal the influence of Pat Metheny, whom he pays tribute to on the lyrical ballad "Stand Pat." And that isn't the only homage... read more
Chad McCullough & Bram Weijters - Imaginary Sketches
by Peter De Backer, Jazzmozaek, April 2011
This music is moving, very melodic, and lyrical, with nicely building solos - like in "Another Dark Ballad," where Weijters is at his best. People who love accessible, but tasteful mainstream jazz, are well served with this CD.
(translated from... read more
Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra - The Endless Search
by George Fendel, Oregon Jazz Scene
Please don't refer to them as a big band. About five minutes with this recording, and you'll agree that this is a jazz orchestra. Boasting many of Seattle's top-flight jazz cats, the SRJO presents here the recorded debut of Jimmy Heath's remarkable new suite in three movements, "The Endless Search." Commissioned and first performed by the SRJO in 2006, sax legend Heath is on hand to personally provide vigorous solo work. These charts are... read more
Lorin Cohen - Home
by Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader
Though he's lived in New York since 2012, bassist Lorin Cohen reveals the modesty instilled by his Chicago upbringing on his recently released debut Home (Origin), playing with a soulful muscularity and helming his band's harmonic shapes and rhythmic thrust rather than trying to command center stage. Cohen understands what it takes to make a band sound better without drawing attention to himself. Before leaving town he spent five years on the... read more
Peter Erskine & the JAM Music Lab All-Stars - Bernstein in Vienna
by George W Harris, Jazz Weekly
Legendary drummer Peter Erskine brings together a band consisting of tenor saxophonist Robert Unterkofler, Bertl Mayer on harmonica, violinist Cozy Friedel, guitarist Andreas Varady, Danny Ziemann on bass and musical director Danny Grissett on piano for a tribute to one of America's great composers, Leonard Bernstein, at a concert in Vienna Austria back in October of 2021.
Erskine is a master here, creating irresistible crests for Unterkofler... read more
Anthony Branker & Word Play - Dialogic
by Thomas Erdmann, JazzReview.com
Founder and Director of the Program in Jazz Studies, and Associate Director of the Program in Musical Performance at Princeton University, Anthony Branker also directs ensembles and teaches courses in jazz theory, improvisation and composition, jazz performance practice in historical and cultural context, jazz composition, and jazz history. A U.S. Fulbright Scholar and visiting professor at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Tallinn,... read more
Sam Yahel - Truth And Beauty
by Francis Davis, The Village Voice
As organ combos go, Sam Yahel's Truth and Beauty is unusual, first of all for including an Ornette Coleman tune: "Check Up," a rubato ballad wherein Brian Blade's drums carry the melody. The other departure from convention is no tenor honking?together with the minor-key mysterioso of Yahel's compositions and his light foot on the bass pedal, the swiftness and high-pitched yearning of Joshua Redman's solos and duos with the Hammond B-3 lift the... read more
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