Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Marcos Varela - San Ygnacio
by Christian Wissmuller, Jazzed
Bassist Marcos Varela is one of the young bright lights on the NYC jazz scene. A native of Houston, he attended that city's renowned High School for the Performing & Visual Arts, where his fellow alumni include Jason Moran, Robert Glasper, Eric Harland, Chris Dave, and Beyonce.
Varela arrived in NYC to continue his studies at the New School, leading to performance opportunities with a wide range of artists including George Cables, Billy... read more
Jordan VanHemert - Nomad
by Jane Kozhevnikova, All About Jazz
4-STARS After his previous album, I Am Not A Virus (Big Round Records, 2021), inspired by the ongoing fight against racial prejudice, Jordan VanHemert releases Nomad, continuing to explore and embrace his Asian American identity. As the liner note says, this album is a celebration of Korean culture "through the melodies of both ancient & contemporary folk & children's songs, distilled through a modern jazz aesthetic."
The opening... read more
John Stowell | Michael Zilber - Live Beauty
by Hobart Taylor, KUCI, Irvine, CA
Saxes (Zilber), guitars (Stowell) and a rhythm section play airy melodic mainstream jazz with spacey elements in this live recording from the Bay Area. Traditional improvisational moves and sequential solos abound. Always interesting (says I damning with faint praise), the performances really take off during "Quantum Theory", "Stowell What", a deconstructed "My Funny Valentine", and a John Scofield tune "Wabash... read more
Nnenna Freelon - Time Traveler
by Paul Abella, WDCB (Chicago)
It has been entirely too long between albums from Nnenna Freelon. Discounting a Christmas album from 2012, the last we heard from Freelon was in 2010. She's back in 2021 with Time Traveler, an album recorded in the wake of her husband's long term illness and death in 2019. Considering the tragedy and heartache surrounding the album, it's an astonishingly upbeat affair. Even the songs that could have been maudlin, like "Time in a Bottle," instead... read more
Hal Galper Trio - The Zone: Live at the Yardbird Suite
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
4.5 STARS Pianist Hal Galper has rounded out a career spanning five decades with his stint at Origin Records, beginning with Furious Rubato (2007) and wrapping things up—or so it was rumored—with 2018's Cubist. Most of these are trio affairs featuring bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer John Bishop, with Cubist adding saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi to the mix. All of them respresent Galper's quest for the perfection of the elastic approach... read more
Rob Lockart - Parallel Lives
by Ric Bang, The Davis Enterprise, April 3, 2008
Rob Lockart is Texas born and educated at teh Eastman School Of Music; he completed studies at teh Banf School. He has lived and worked in New Orleans, New York and Los Angeles, where he now resides and teaches.
His musical experience includes jobs with the Woody Herman Orchestra, Doc Severinson's Big Band and performances with numerous smaller groups headed by well-known artists such as Clark Terry, Joe La Barbara and Mel Lewis. Lockart... read more
David Friesen - This Light Has No Darkness, Volume 1
by Rick Anderson, CD Hot List
Jazz albums with explicitly religious themes are not unheard of, but they're not typical either. And yet last month I recommended a solo album by a jazz guitarist who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and whose music served as an expression of her faith, and this month I find myself recommending a new album from the venerable bassist/composer David Friesen, whose music in this case is also written in an attitude of... read more
Dudley Owens | Aaron Immanuel Wright - People Calling
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz
Saxophonist Dudley Owens and bassist Aaron Wright bring together (in classic quintet format) a band intent on expanding the language of Miles Davis's second great quintet from within. On People Calling the band does exactly this: they create a late '60s sonic image stamped in 21st Century digital. The writing is firmly post bop, with Atlantic period Ornette Coleman fighting its way out. These influences are governed by a firm compositional... read more
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