Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Kelly Brand Nextet - The Door
by Brad Walseth, www.jazzchicago.net
It sometimes astounds me, when I hear local musicians whose talent is world class, and yet they are perhaps not very well known outside the boundaries of Chicago, although they should be. Case in point is pianist/composer Kelly Brand, who is known to the jazz fans of Chicago, but deserves a much wider audience based on her stellar playing and composition skills. If there is any justice in the world, her new nextet recording "The Door" will open... read more
Western Jazz Collective - Dark Journey: The Music of Andrew Rathbun
by Jack Bowers, All About Jazz
The Western Jazz Collective is a seven-member co-op group that actually hails from America's Midwest—more specifically, Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo—where the ensemble's crew serve as members of the faculty. The designation "Western" thus refers to the university rather than the septet's geographic location.
Be that as it may, what infuses and animates the Collective's debut album, Dark Journey, is the music, all of... read more
Bobby Broom - Song And Dance
by Jeff Krow, Audiophile Audition
Bobby Broom has to be one of the hardest working jazz guitar slingers in the business. As well as being Sonny Rollins' choice guitarist, both for recording and touring, Broom also plays in the funky Chicago Hammond B-3 group, Deep Blue Organ Trio, which holds court at the Green Mill nightclub on a weekly basis. Broom's resume is extensive going back to the late 70s with Art Blakey, Hugh Masekela, and even a super brief stopover with Miles Davis.... read more
Toby Koenigsberg - Sense
by Birney K. Brown, Audiophile Audition
To summarize this 2006 release first: This is an absolutely superb piano trio delivering a magnificent program. I've listened to this disc numerous times, both on my dedicated home system and in the car. One of my first impressions was how well the group was captured by the engineer. I then noticed that the HDCD indicator light was glowing on my DAC. Although there is no indication in the packaging, this CD is HDCD encoded. One needs not... read more
Joachim Mencel - Brooklyn Eye
by Marcin Puławski, Laboratorium Muzycznych Fuzja (Poland)
"Brooklyn Eye" is a dream come true to record an American-inspired album and to do it in New York, together with American musicians." - its author Joachim Mencel. Listening to the recording, it is easy to come to the conclusion that the pianist has more than fulfilled his dream, because in addition to being inspired by America, he smuggled content boldly referring to illustrative music, which could be the basis of the film, not... read more
Corey Christiansen - Roll With It
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz.com
If jazz is America's soundtrack, periodically updated by tonal seismic shifts, then Corey Christiansen's third release, Roll With It, is one such shift. Imagine a Grant Green-Jimmy Smith-Stanley Turrentine 1960s triumvirate (had one existed) buffed to an early 21st Century digital sheen, greasy easy on the pork fat, hard on the omega-3s and what you get is guitarist Corey Christiansen's soul-jazz world view.
Debuting on Origin Records with... 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
Hal Galper - Trip the Light Fantastic
by Ric Bang, Jazz Scan
If you aren't familiar with pianist Hal Galper, you haven't been paying attention. He was a scholarship student at Boston's School of Music, just a few years after it came into existence in the 1950s; he has more than 80 recordings to his credit ? 20 as a leader ? and, in addition to his skill as a pianist, is a composer, arranger, publisher, teacher and author.
Galper always has been ahead of his time. In a biographical note, he recalls... read more
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