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Benjamin Herman: NRFS
by Ludovico Granvassu
On Tokyo Sessions (Dox Records), Dutch saxophonist Benjamin Herman captures the restless energy of a series of Tokyo musical encounters he develed into alongside drummer and producer Jimmi Jo Hueting and bassist Thomas Pol--an industrious and vivid encounter between the Dutch and Japanese scenes. Rather than the polished Tokyo familiar to jazz tourists, the ...
Dida Pelled: Blues in the Night
by Ludovico Granvassu
Dida Pelled's I Wish You Would (La Reserve) is more than a love letter to the blues, a genre she returns to after the high bar she set with A Missing Shade of Blue (Red Records). It is the definitive statement of an artist whose signature lies in the irresistible contrast between the understated intimacy of ...
Bill Evans: Nardis
by Sue Yang
Bill Evans turns “Nardis" into something far more tense and combustible on At The Montreux Jazz Festival (Verve Records, 1968). Anyone coming to this performance looking only for the lyrical, introspective Evans will hear a trio working closer to the edge. Jack DeJohnette keeps the music in restless motion, Eddie Gomez pushes the bass into a ...
Dave Douglas: Energy Fields
by Ludovico Granvassu
Here is a gem by Dave Douglas featuring the latest all-star incarnation of his Gifts band, now expanded with cellist Tomeka Reid and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, joining original members Rafiq Bhatia (guitar) and Ian Chang (drums).Two years after the eponymous album honoring Billy Strayhorn, Douglas continues his exploration of foundational jazz composers. On ...
Luciano Biondini, Michel Godard, Lucas Niggli: Lawns
by Ludovico Granvassu
Since Carla Bley's passing in 2023, the growing fascination with her songbook--which had already been steadily building for years--has increased exponentially, as more and more musicians turn to her unique blend of melodic clarity and emotional ambiguity. And so, by now, pieces such as “Ida Lupino" and “Lawns" have cemented their place in the pantheon of ...
Michael Formanek: aka the Stinger
by Ludovico Granvassu
An invitation to perform at the 2023 Guimarães Jazz Festival in Portugal gave bassist and composer Michael Formanek the perfect opportunity to explore the sonic possibilities of the organ--an instrument he first loved in the rock bands of his Bay Area youth, and later rediscovered in the visionary works of Olivier Messiaen.Alexander Hawkins proves ...
Jamile and Vinicius Gomes: Endangered Species
by John Chacona
The musical exchange between Wayne Shorter and Brazil yielded some of the great man's most indelible compositions. Happily, the conversation happens in the other direction, as Jamile and guitarist Vinicius Gomes demonstrate on “Endangered Species." With its wide intervallic leaps and skylarking melodic trajectory, the song is for virtuosos only; notably, only Esperanza Spalding seems to ...
Paul Horn: Too High
by Kitty Kalriess
Check out flute and saxophonist Paul Horn's innovative cover of Stevie Wonder's “Too High." The track is off the album Visions, a lesser-known but highly interesting entry in Horn's catalog. On the 1974 Soul Note release, he pivots from a more spiritual style into a jazz-funk/soul reinterpretation of major early '70s songwriters. On “Too ...
Marion Rampal: And It's Supposed to Be Love
by Ludovico Granvassu
More than fifteen years after her passing, Abbey Lincoln continues to move listeners and inspire fellow jazz singers--perhaps even more than during her lifetime. One of the most beautiful testaments to her enduring influence can be found in the recent album Song for Abbey by Marion Rampal. Both intimate and reverent, the recording serves not only ...
Rufus Wainwright: I’m a Stranger Here Myself
by Ludovico Granvassu
I'm a Stranger Here Myself--Wainwright Does Weill (Thirty Tigers, 2025) is a project decades in the making. Rufus Wainwright's affection for the music of Kurt Weill dates back to his twenties, though the idea of an album began to take shape more recently, following a series of concerts at the storied Café Carlyle in 2023. From ...
