Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Anthony Branker & Imagine - What Place Can Be for Us?
by Ron Schepper, Textura
As the composer, arranger, and musical director for the ten-movement suite What Place Can Be for Us?, Anthony Branker is the visionary force behind the project and, as importantly, the one responsible with recruiting the top-tier musicians that perform it. The latest edition of his group Imagine draws on the considerable talents of tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III, trumpeter Philip Dizack, alto saxophonist Remy Le Boeuf, guitarist Pete McCann,... read more
Barry Greene - Giants
by Jack Bowers, All About Jazz
The Giants singled out by guitarist Barry Greene on his recording of that name include a number of musicians who served as role models and helped shape his singular musical voice. Pat Martino is one, as are Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Russell Malone and Pat Metheny, each one a stepping-stone on Greene's upward path toward self-identity and mastery of his instrument of choice. Greene paid it forward by teaching for more than thirty years at the... read more
Diego Barber & Hugo Cipres - 411
by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz
The opening of the decidedly modern music on 411, the track entitled "Timanfaya," sounds like a spooky, welcome to a plugged-in netherworld. It begins with electric surges and wafflings, then glowing beeps punctuating electric washes before a shift into tune two, "all in," that sounds as if the late multiple reedman Eric Dolphy is hanging around the place, where he's hooked up with guitarist/composer Frank Zappa.
The music is the... read more
John Stowell - The Banff Sessions
by Jim Ferguson, Jazz Times
While many players who came up in the '70s and '80s stylistically reflect the influence of Pass, Montgomery, Hall, Kessel, Burrell, Grant Green, and a few other players who helped forged the mainstream guitar style in the '50s and '60s, Oregon resident John Stowell plays with an airy, lithe approach the basis of which is advanced, close-voiced chords more akin to pianists like Bill Evans. On The Banff Sessions (Origin), his most recent... read more
Geof Bradfield - African Flowers
by Neil Tesser, Examiner.com
"Travel broadens the mind," says the ancient maxim. When the traveler is a skilled and sensitive artist ? such as Geof Bradfield, the relaxed and brilliant Chicago tenor saxophonist ? his travel can also broaden the minds of others. And at the very least, it will prove enormously entertaining.
Bradfield's newly released African Flowers (Origin Records) exploits these possibilities with inspiration and panache, and enough of each to make it... read more
Bill Anschell - Shifting Standards
by Ian Guin, Earshot
Jazz musicians are mathematicians, carpenters, athletes. With absurd devotion they hone their minds and muscles in ceaseless work, just so that at the end of the ledger the balance reaches zero, so every corner dovetails into a standing cabinet, so the javelin might reach a few inches further. If you need an answer to why jazz musicians work so hard, all the time, the latest release of pianist Bill Anschell has it. Shifting Standards, recorded... read more
Tito Carrillo - Opening Statement
by John Barron, The Jazz Word
Trumpeter Tito Carrillo opens his debut disc Opening Statement with the fast-paced, energetic original piece "Truth Seeker." The title of the tune suggests someone on a personal quest for enlightenment. Whatever the case may be, the Chicago-based musician seems to have found a form of musical truth in an unabashed, fiery trumpet style, rooted in the post-bop styles of Woody Shaw and Freddie Hubbard and laced with a tinge of Latin American soul.... read more
Benjamin Boone with the Ghana Jazz Collective - Joy
by Dr. Debra Jan Bibel, Amazon
Benjamin Boone, saxophonist and composer, is also a Ph.D. scholar. He previously released the two distinguished musical volumes of The Poetry of Jazz, and as a Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellow he has traveled to Moldova, Ethiopia, and most recently Ghana for study and music exchange. While in Accra, Ghana, he was astonished to hear mainstream American jazz but with West African tinge. In this album, The Ghana Jazz Collective — a quartet of... read more
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