Jack DeJohnette Archives · paulsemel.com

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette: “After The Fall” Review

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).

Anouar Brahem: Blue Maqams Review

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.