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Category: CD Reviews

Roll Call: December 11, 2020

Published 11 December, 2020 By John Chacona
Roll Call: December 11, 2020Roll Call

 

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 450 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll offer hot takes on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.

Lately, a lot of music from Argentina has been finding it’s way to me via the ears&eyes Records label documenting what seems to be a vibrant improvised music scene. Earlier this year I reviewed Camilla Nebbia’s “Aura,” which fell just outside my ten favorite releases of 2020. Unilke Nebbia, whose name was completely new to me, pianist Leo Genovese, formerly the pianist in Esperanza Spalding’s band, is a known quantity.

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Roll Call: December 4, 2020

Published 8 December, 2020 By John Chacona
Roll Call: December 4, 2020Roll Call

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 450 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll offer hot takes on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.

Prickly Pear Cactus_jacketTo celebrate her 60th birthday year in 2019, pianist Satoko Fujii released an album a month. With a work ethic like that, no mere global pandemic could keep her down. “Prickly Pear Cactus” (Libra Records) is presumably her final release of 2020, though with Fujii, you never know. It’s really more of a collective effort by the Kobe, Japan-based pianist, her husband Natsuke Tamura on trumpet and New York laptop

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Roll Call: November 30, 2020

Published 2 December, 2020 By John Chacona
Roll Call: November 30, 2020

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 450 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll do quick hits on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.

Jeff Ellwood The Sounds Around the House coverYou never get a second chance to make a first impression, the old saying goes. So, when you’re planning your debut CD release, why not surround yourself with some highly accomplished A-listers? That’s what Jeff Ellwood did on “The Sounds Around the House,” and it pays off

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Roll Call: September 11, 2020

Published 11 September, 2020 By John Chacona
Roll Call: September 11, 2020

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 360 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll do quick hits on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.

Think of “Something to Say“ as a map that leads the listener directly to trombonist Matt Haviland‘s musical heart. He gets you there pretty quick, exploding out of the blocks with Freddie Hubbard’s “Arietis,” the adrenalized hard-bop workout that led off Hubbard’s “Ready for Freddie.” That classic Blue Note session was recorded in 1961, and Johnathan Blake’s muscular, post-Tony Williams drum style excepted,

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Roll Call: September 4, 2020

Published 4 September, 2020 By John Chacona
Roll Call: September 4, 2020

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 345 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll do quick hits on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.

Trumpeter Michael Sarian was born in Toronto to Armenian parents, grew up in Buenos Aires and has lived in New York since 2012. Yet his sound is closest to lyrical European players such as Enrico Rava, Tomasz Stanko and Kenny Wheeler.

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