Most reunions tend to be nostalgia trips. Old friends reminisce, reformed rock bands play their big hits, while former classmates laugh about that time you did that thing.
But while iconic jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon held a bit of a reunion during the 1977 concert that’s now available as Espace Cardin 1977 (CD, vinyl), this album is anything but a look backwards.
Though they were not his most prolific quartet, jazz pianist Thelonious Monk did some of his best work when he played with tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, double bassist John Orr, and drummer Frankie Dunlop. Now, fans of this fabulous foursome have reason to celebrate thanks to Mønk (CD, vinyl, digital), a newly-unearthed live recording from 1963 that sounds as good as the band playing on it.
In my never-ending quest to find interesting and moody jazz that isn’t made by a piano / bass / drum trio, or some other equally common combination, I present Retrograde (CD, digital) a free jazz duo collection by trumpeter, flugelhorn player, and alto clarinetist Matt Lavelle and drummer Reggie Sylvester, best known as two-fourths of the Bern Nix Quartet.
Having recorded as a duo (2015’s Live At Okuden), a trio with drummer Hamid Drake (2016’s Live At Okuden), and a trio with bassist William Parker (2017’s This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People), you’d expect the jazz twosome of pianist Matthew Shipp and clarinetist, saxophonist Mat Walerian to next record a quartet collection, perhaps with Drake and Parker.
But while their new album Sonic Fiction (CD, digital), was recorded by four people, it’s not the four you might expect. Credited to the Matthew Shipp Quartet Featuring Mat Walerian, Sonic Fiction features Michael Bisio on double bass and drummer Whit Dickey.
In talking to Shipp and Walerian, they discuss why this album is so unexpected, and what else they’re planning, as well as Shipp’s new solo piano collection Zero (CD, digital) and his three-disc boxed set with tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman, Oneness (CD).
In 2014, the iconic jazz trio of pianist Keith Jarrett, double bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Jack DeJohnette announced that their association was coming to an end nearly forty years after they first worked together on Peacock’s 1977 album Tales Of Another, and more than thirty years since their official debut as a threesome on 1983’s Standards, Vol. 1.
This was especially disheartening given that their last album, 2013’s Somewhere, was one of their finest collections in a career that spawned nearly two dozen great albums.
But it seems the mourning may have been a little premature, as the trio are back — virtually, that is — with a cool new live archival double album, After The Fall (CD, digital).
Between its cover shot of the iconic jazz saxophonist in a cowboy outfit, and songs titled “I’m An Old Cowhand,” “Wagon Wheels,” and “Way Out West,” Sonny Rollins’ album Way Out West probably seemed a bit odd when it came out in 1957. Or maybe a bit cheeky. But in the sixty years since it has emerged as one of the sax master’s best. Thankfully, the new Way Out West: Deluxe Edition (digital, vinyl) corrects many of the mistakes of previous editions, while adding some welcome new outtakes (and, er, some mistakes) as well.
Depending on your perspective, R.E.M.’s 1992 album Automatic For The People is either one of their best, or their most uneven and inconsistent. But whether you adore it or just think it’s okay, you’ll find something to enjoy in the new Automatic For The People 25th Anniversary Edition. In fact, the only real question is whether you buy the regular version on CD, the deluxe version on CD, the digital edition, or the vinyl.
Like a lot of jazz fans, I first heard oud player Anouar Brahem when he teamed with soprano saxophonist, bass clarinetist John Surman and double bassist Dave Holland for their 1997 album Thimar, a hauntingly beautiful and moody collection that seamlessly melded middle-eastern music with jazz. It’s territory Brahem would mine again with 1999’s Astrakan Cafe and 2008’s The Astounding Eyes Of Rita, just as he had prior to Thimar on his 1991 debut Barzakh and on Jan Garabek’s 1994 album Madar. Now he returns to it once more, and with a familiar face in tow, for Blue Maqams (CD, digital, vinyl), yet another album on which he and his compatriots create moody beauty from the marriage of jazz and the middle-east.
Having recorded one live album on their own (2015’s excellent Live At Okuden) and a second live album as a trio with drummer Hamid Drake (2016’s also excellent Live At Okuden), the jazz duo of pianist, organist Matthew Shipp and alto saxophonist, bass clarinetist, soprano clarinetist, and flutist Matt Walerian are mixing things up again for This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People (CD, digital), their first studio album and first recording with bassist, shakuhachi player William Parker. That it took such a long sentence to explain was not intentional, but it was fitting given the music they’ve made this time out.