Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
David Sills - Green
by Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
For his third solo affair on Seattle's Origin Records, SoCal sax player David Sills produces a classic sort of sound in combination with the rest of his sextet, formed for this album. The saxes tend to run on parallel melodic lines, the guitar solos hark slightly to the days of Charlie Christian, and the rhythm section provides a casual, bouncing backdrop for the front lines. Some of Sills' previous work (primarily that with the Acoustic Jazz... read more
Rodney Whitaker - Mosaic: The Music of Gregg Hill
by Paul Rauch, All About Jazz
4-STARS In their fourth collaboration on Origin Records, bassist and bandleader Rodney Whitaker and Central Michigan composer Gregg Hill strike gold once again, backed by a formidable gathering of musicians. Hill's music has experienced a surge in interest due to his prolific releases on Origin, which have featured musicians in and around the impressive jazz faculty roster at Michigan State University, a program with Whitaker at the... read more
Anthony Branker & Imagine - What Place Can Be for Us?
by Philip Booth, Jazzlands
Anthony Branker's 10-movement suite, initially written in response to the forced migration of Syrians during their country's civil war, also points to the open racism, bigotry and cultural erasure on the rise in America, circa 2023. The ambitious, sprawling song cycle opens with the fusion-edged "The Door of No Return," its title a reference to the Senegalese site where Africans were captured and forced onto slave ships bound to the New World;... read more
Jeff Johnson - Free
by Dave McElfresh, JazzNow
In spite of the printed lineup info, this certainly doesn't feel like an effort by only three players. Check out the thick interactions between Johnson's bass and Teuber's saxophone on some of the cuts and see if your head doesn't register the heady dialogues as being the work of more than four arms.
Johnson's a shadow boxer who doesn't support a soloist as much as he challenges him. No wonder he's played with the likes of Chet Baker, Julian... read more
Andrea Brachfeld - Brazilian Whispers
by Raul Da Gama, Latin Jazz Network
Brazilian Whispers... How appropriate is that as the title for an album by Andrea Brachfeld. Not only does the instrument she plays - the flute - lend itself to the kind of meditative Brasilian (how the word is actually meant to be spelled) music but the music itself "speaks" - indeed "whispers" - in a very special way to Miss Brachfeld. The repertoire on this album is no exception. Featuring exquisitely crafted arrangements of mesmeric... read more
Steve Korn - Points in Time
by Dr. Thomas R. Erdmann, Jazz Review
The first thing that immediately strikes you about Seattle drummer/percussionist/composer Steve Korn's latest recording, Points In Time, is his remarkably musical cymbal technique. Whether it be his ability to lightly brush the face of the cymbals with just the very tip of the drumstick, or riding out the rhythm on larger cymbals, Korn is able to work musical magic with one of the most overlooked and taken for granted aspects of drumset playing.... read more
Florian Hoefner - Luminosity
by Michael J. West, Jazztimes
"Typical" and "generic" aren't synonyms. Pianist Florian Hoefner works to create music that " doesn't sound like generic jazz." To be sure, Luminosity, Hoefner's third album with his quartet, is not generic, with its oblong structures and meters that require listeners to search for the 1. But its use of those elements to distinguish it does make it fairly typical mid-2010s postbop.
But never mind: The point is it's very... read more
BOX - Ten Variations On An Unknown Theme
by Adam Greenburg, All Music Guide
A trio of Swiss jazzers here combine for a series of entirely improvisatory jazz built in theory around a theme. That said, the theme is also unknown. The goal is to make improvisatory music while creating a theme by way of its variations. By circling in from the outside, the core form will eventually become clear. The players all perform well on their respective instruments, in a basic piano trio (with an occasional outburst of bugle). The... read more
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