Joe Henry is best known in service to others, a writer of songs for stars (Madonna “Don’t Tell Me To Stop”) and producer to everyone from Meshell Ndegéocello and Ani DiFranco to Elvis Costello and Mose Allison. His own recordings tend to be noisy affairs with confessional, expressionistic poetry set…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

Pianist Keith Jarrett’s quarter-century of trio recordings with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette sustains his reputation as one of music’s most inventive improvisers. But it’s his infrequent solo work, beginning with his 1971 release Facing You, that best displays his improvisational genius. Rio, recorded live in the Brazilian…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

REINCARNATION OF A LOVE BIRD, Paul Motian and the Electric Bebop Band ; JMT, recorded June 1994. Motian had a way of layering his sound against the ring of electric guitars and for a while in the ’90s had bands that doubled up on them and saxophones (see Garden of Eden,…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

I first saw Paul Motian in the early ’70s with the Keith Jarrett Quartet. The group came to our modest Midwestern university one cold Saturday night and set up on risers in the student union ballroom. Except for Motian, none of the group, which included bassist Charlie Haden and saxophonist…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

THE THIRD MAN  Stefano Bollani, Enrico Rava; ECM, recorded November 2006. The combination of Rava’s scissor-sharp trumpet and Bolani’s velvety piano work makes for designs cut from whole cloth. The opening tune “Estate” is a marvel of interwoven mood and method. Like a long-married couple, these two seem able to…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

In a sense, every jazz performance is a tribute to one –or more likely many — jazz greats. We Four: Celebrating John Coltrane, the collaboration between drummer Jimmy Cobb, saxophonist  Javon Jackson, bassist Nat Reeves and, for this appearance, pianist Eric Reed that appeared Saturday at Vanessie’s in Santa Fe,…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

***I hope our countless fans around the globe will forgive the delay of this Playlist…a winter storm took out our internet and the company formerly known as Qwest took four days to repair it. Hope this isn’t the norm in Santa Fe.

SOULTRANE, John Coltrane; Prestige, recorded February, 1958.  I was…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

SONGS OF MIRTH AND MELANCHOLY, Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo; Marsalis Music, recorded January, 2010. Teamwork metaphors may seem apt for this recording even if there are few sports, other than tennis, that make a team of two. And there’s no straight-man-comic presentation, as happens so often in duos, apparent…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

MIRROR, Charles Lloyd; ECM, released September, 2010.  It drives me nuts that certain critics can’t see Charles Lloyd as anything but a Coltrane spin off. Beyond a certain, infrequently heard tonal similarity there’s a world of difference: different mood, different phrasing and yes, different moods. While the intensity of  Coltrane’s…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]

Joseph Haydn: Die sieben lezten Worte unseres Erlosers am Kreuze (The Seven Last Words of Our Savior On the Cross); Broodin Quartet, Teldec, recorded October, 1993 . The lush, lovely side of the Passion Play, the Largo second movement is to die for. Grave, but somehow transcendent. No, not first-thing-in-the-morning…

Continue reading →

[Read more →]