Articles by Mike Jurkovic
Oscar Peterson: The Oscar Peterson Trio at Baker's Keyboard Lounge
by Mike Jurkovic
If any one player fills a soul to the brim with unbridled joy, Oscar Peterson--his whole 'tude, his smile, his swing--is that grand soul and our grand fortune. Put on any of Peterson's archival releases-- Around the World, Con Alma: The Oscar Petersen Trio--Live In Lugano, 1964, or City Lights: Live in Munich 1994 (Two Lions Records/Mack Avenue, 2025, 2022, 2023)--and it becomes spontaneously apparent that the man brought the JOY every day to every stage. It was his life ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts
by Mike Jurkovic
Another insanely good Record Store Day release from Elemental Music, Fragments, The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts, is available as a limited-edition, 180-gram, 3-LP gatefold set or as your standard 2-CD version, but truth be told and told plainly, any version will serve one well. Talk about rumble in the jungle. Fragments, The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts pushes at you like a gang fight on the 49-minute “Fragments of a Dedication to Duke Ellington Evening Set Version." ...
Continue ReadingTyshawn Sorey: Members... Don't!
by Mike Jurkovic
Pulitzer Prize-winning, MacArthur Fellow Dr. Tyshawn Sorey may not remember 1968 directly, since he was born in 1980, but he most certainly and unapologetically understands how angry that year was. And he has captured that fiery time with an epic reimagining? rethinking? rebooting? double take of Max Roach's epic telling of that year after the Summer of Love, Members, Don't Git Weary (Atlantic, 1968) Recorded live at the tail end of a four-day stay at the Jazz Gallery ...
Continue ReadingAhmad Jamal: At The Jazz Showcase: Live In Chicago
by Mike Jurkovic
There was something Buddha yet cool-as-all-hell about Ahmad Jamal. Who else would give the whole story away with the set-opening, barn-raising ingenuity of “Ahmad's Song"--a CV of everything Jamal--his musings on time and space; his insatiable swing-- and dares you to keep up on At The Jazz Showcase: Live in Chicago. A gig to remember, no matter what side of history it happened on, Jamal, bassist John Heard, and drummer Frank Gant take a chill, take-no- prisoners attitude at ...
Continue ReadingJoe Henderson: Consonance: Live At The Jazz Showcase
by Mike Jurkovic
All About Jazz loyalists will most certainly recall the excitement that accompanied the manic energy of the not-too-distant Blue Note release of Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs (2024), pitting saxophonist Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner onstage in the Bronx in 1966. There is a great deal of that same joie de vivre captured here on Consonance: Live at the Jazz Showcase, Resonance's first release from the Jazz Showcase archive Twelve years down the line, Henderson ...
Continue ReadingCarla Bley: Joyful Noise – Live In Hamburg 1984
by Mike Jurkovic
For a brief human moment, let us imagine that pianist/composer/maestro Carla Bley was cast as a villainess on the low-camp-crazy 60's Batman TV show. Yes, that one. The one with Adam West running around in tights. Who would Bley be? Perhaps, with her humorous inquests into any musical form that might threaten Gotham, she would be dubbed The Dabbler. Yes, The Dabbler! Or maybe, The Dancer! The woman in the opulent headpiece who always took the lead. For ...
Continue ReadingYvonne Rogers: The Button Jar
by Mike Jurkovic
It should not be as hard as it is to pinpoint the beauty of pianist/composer Yvonne Roger's sublime piano, but it is. You listen to “Little Dance" from the intimate and intricate calligraphy of her Kris Davis produced The Button Jar and say to yourself “There it is!" Then, the next track, “Thread the Needle," enters the ether and, sure enough, that shimmering elegance is shining forth right there. Before that, the unravelling textures of “Luster" pull your presence elsewhere. ...
Continue ReadingSoren Bebe: Gratitude
by Mike Jurkovic
If, in fact, there is a quiet no one hears, it still needs a translator, and that translator can very well be Danish pianist Soren Bebe and that translation is Gratitude, a rootsy triumph of mettle over turmoil. Silence over the trading of coin. David over Goliath. Cutting to the chase, Gratitude --held together by the emphatic catch and release of bassist Kasper Tagel and drummer Knut Finsrud to Bebe's melodic instigations, be they the waxing moon lustre ...
Continue ReadingMatthieu Mazué: Turn of Events
by Mike Jurkovic
In layman's terms, Turn of Events, French pianist Matthieu Mazué's 577 Records trio debut with fellow arsonists--Francisco Mela and trumpeter Diego Hedez--is a head rush. An old-fashioned, split-minute, play-by-play head rush that gives you a bit of vertigo at first. Which is really very cool and okay, because in this flood-the-zone environment, a bit of vertigo just might reveal an escape route: an off-ramp from the malaise of monotony we inhabit to an on-ramp of festival and wonder.
Continue ReadingMarilyn Crispell / Anders Jormin: Memento
by Mike Jurkovic
Even with her most youthful and combustible studies into our common language--1988's solo watermark Labyrinths (Victor); with Paul Motian and Reggie Workman, Live In Zurich (Leo, 1989); to the mature, questing, and timeless Amaryllis (Blue Note, 2001) with Motian and Gary Peacock; and the trio muscle of Dreamstruck (Not Two, 2018) alongside bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Harvey Sorgen--a quiet, abiding awe of human potential has always and forever held the center of Marilyn Crispell's heart, and thus, her music. ...
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