With Soul & Circuitry (Ropeadope, 2025), Los Angeles-based pianist/keyboardist/electronics wizard/producer Julian “J3PO” Pollack issues his second album on one of our most trustworthy labels. The record is his tenth overall as a leader. If you’re unfamiliar with Pollack’s other output, he’s been the keyboardist for Marcus Miller and Chris Botti and is currently a member […]
Every so often, an album moves beyond music, carrying the listener to an array of deeply reflective moods. Last year, we were gifted such an album in Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens (Red Hook, 2024) by pianist Amina Claudine Myers and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. Now, with the latest release on […]
Joshua Redman did not follow suit after his first vocal album, where are we (Blue Note, 2024). Sure, vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa appears on a track, but gone is the supergroup rhythm section of Aaron Parks, Joe Sanders, and Brian Blade, all of whom left to honor other commitments. Yet, Redman had compositions in the tank […]
Pianist and composer Matthew Shipp seems to be garnering as much publicity for his criticisms of André 3000’s piano album as his own music lately. As is often said, even negative publicity may be good in the long run. This site has certainly given Shipp his fair due, of the positive kind, with the two-part […]
If you have not yet read the two-part interview with saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp regarding Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms, 2025), it provides important context to the recording. The album features a quartet with those two joined by bassist William Parker and violist Mat Maneri, in a chamber-like, drummer-less session to which these […]
My review of emerging piano great Isaiah J. Thompson’s Power of the Spirit (Blue Engine, 2023) ended thusly: “a must-have for enthusiasts of straight-ahead, blood-pumping soul-jazz, 21st-century style. Thompson will be a force to be reckoned with well into the foreseeable future.” While there is still plenty of soul-jazz present in The Book of Isaiah: […]
One never knows where drummer-composer Ches Smith’s muse will take him next. From the Haitian voudou of We All Break: Path of Seven Colors (Pyroclastic, 2021) to the uncategorizable mash-ups of Laugh Ash (Pyroclastic, 2024) to inventive trio albums with violist Mat Maneri and Craig Taborn to whatever else strikes his fancy, Smith is there. […]
There are widely publicized and wildly anticipated supergroups, and then there are those – at least a few – that sprout suddenly without heralding fanfare. The Quantum Blues Quartet is the epitome of the latter, joining four iconic players who came together in New York in 2024 for a day-long session. They are avant-garde jazz […]
My sister and I made the scenic journey through the picturesque farmlands of central Pennsylvania, through the bucolic splendor of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, on a nine-hour road trip to Knoxville, TN, for the annual Big Ears Festival. The fest has become America’s – and perhaps the world’s – most diverse, eclectic, and exploratory festival comprising […]
