John Chacona

Review: David Ake’s ‘Green Thumb’

It takes daring for a producer to lead off a recording with a ballad. When that producer is Marc Free…

2 years ago

Review: Avram Fefer’s ‘Juba Lee’

F​​or the last quarter of the 20th century, Italian labels Black Saint and Soul Note issued an influential series of…

3 years ago

Review: Thumbscrew’s ‘Multicolored Midnight’

The fourth cut on Thumbscrew’s Multicolored Midnight (Cuneiform, 2022) is entitled “Shit Changes.” You don’t have to be a climate scientist or…

3 years ago

Review: Jussi Reijonen’s ‘Three Seconds | Kolme Toista’

"From the snowy, windswept peaks of Lapland to the desert of the Empty Quarter, Three Seconds | Kolme Toista is…

3 years ago

Review: Jakob Bro and Joe Lovano’s ‘Once Around the Room: A Tribute to Paul Motian’

In an interview with Ethan Iverson on his Do the M@th blog, writer Ben Ratliff related an anecdote that Paul…

3 years ago

Veer: A Conversation with Sarah Bernstein

If you want to make a career in contemporary creative music, you could do worse than use the Projects page…

3 years ago

Review: Tyshawn Sorey Trio’s ‘Mesmerism’

Did any artist have a better 2021 than Tyshawn Sorey? The 2017 MacArthur Fellow was the subject of a New…

3 years ago

Review: Steve Cardenas, Ben Allison, and Ted Nash’s ‘Healing Power – The Music of Carla Bley’

If Wayne Shorter is widely acknowledged as the most important living composer in jazz, who is the runner-up? Guitarist Steve…

3 years ago

Review: Irreversible Entanglements’ ‘Open the Gates’

"I’m so close," poet Camae Ayewa, a/k/a Moor Mother, intones on "Lágrimas del Mar" off of Irreversible Entanglements’ Open the Gates (International…

4 years ago

Review: William Parker’s ‘Migration of Silence into and Out of the Tone World [Volumes 1-10]’

Has there ever been a musician whose musical imagination is as universal and as omnivorous as William Parker's? Perhaps Alexander…

4 years ago