Tag: Jazz

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Music Reviews

Mark Reboul, Roberta Piket, Billy Mintz’s “Seven pieces / about an hour / saxophone, piano, drums” Review

 

A good jazz trio is a thing of beauty. But it can also be a thing of redundancy, given how so many of them are just piano, bass, and drums, and how, for every Red Garland Trio or Keith Jarrett / Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette team-up, you have sixty-seven others who add nothing new. Which is why I got excited by Seven pieces / about an hour / saxophone, piano, drums (CD, digital), the first album by the trio of saxophonist Mark Reboul, piano player Roberta Piket, and drummer Billy Mintz. Yes, a bass-less trio. Color me intrigued.

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Ivo Perelman, Aruán Ortiz, Lester St. Louis’ “Prophecy” Review

 

Though he seems to record a new album with pianist pal Matthew Shipp every week, and has also recorded a bunch with bassist Michael Bisio, violinist / violist Mat Maneri, and drummers Whit Dickey and Gerald Cleaver, jazz saxophonist Ivo Perelman seems just as comfortable working with new people, too. Of the nine piano players he teamed with for 2021’s duets boxed set Brass And Ivory Tales, for instance, only one was someone with whom he’d previously collaborated. Which brings me to his new album, Prophecy, on which he teams with cellist Lester St. Louis for the first time, and pianist Aruán Ortiz for the second after…well, what do you know? Brass And Ivory Tales.

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Ivo Perelman, Matthew Ship: “Triptych” Review

 

Andy Warhol once said, “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” But even he would’ve thought it was a bummer that, because of financial considerations, the new album Triptych by jazz saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp went from being a boxed set that presented an album’s worth of music each on CD, LP, and a cassette, and with each recorded with those formats in mind, to only being released digitally as Triptych I, Triptych II, and Triptych III. And while, sure, I really can’t hear the difference in audio quality (which might explain why I’m a music critic, not a music creator), and the songs are good regardless, I still can’t help but wish that Perelman and Shipp had gotten to see the collection as they intended.

For the rest of us, though, all three Triptych sets present the kind of free jazz adjacent music these two have presented countless times before on such albums as Fruition, Special Edition Box, and Amalgam (as you can see from my reviews here, here, and here).

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Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp’s “Fruition” Review

 

Free jazz-adjacent saxophonist Ivo Perelman and pianist Matthew Shipp are both so prolific that they sometimes don’t give their songs proper titles. On 2020’s Amalgam, for instance, the songs were called “Part 1,” “Part 2,” etc., while the CD in the cleverly titled Special Edition Box had songs titled “Track 1,” “Track 2,” and so on. But now they seem to be fucking with us because while the tunes on their newest (and 18th) album as a duo, Fruition (CD, digital), are also just numbered…those numbers are out of order, and are sometimes higher than the number of tunes. Good thing they’re also really good or I might’ve gotten annoyed.

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Ben Sidran “Solid State” Review

 

Not every artist is willing (or able) to try something new 60-something years into their career. But that’s exactly what jazz pianist and singer Ben Sidran is doing on Swing State (CD, digital), the first instrumental album of his illustrious career…and yes, it does beg the question, “What took so long?”

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Matthew Shipp Trio’s “World Construct” Review

 

Like his frequent collaborator Ivo Perelman, jazz pianist Matthew Shipp is almost as known for being prolific as he is for being expressive and versatile. In fact, if the website Discogs is accurate, Shipp has appeared on nearly a dozen albums since just the beginning of this decade. And yet, it’s been three long years since he took center stage with his iconic trio, a situation he’s now rectifying with their interesting and rather varied new album World Construct (CD, digital).

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(D)IVO Saxophone Quartet’s “(D)IVO” Review

 

Back in November I was introduced to the idea of a jazz quartet being all sax players when I heard (and reviewed) the album The Circumference Of Reason by the ROVA Saxophone Quartet. Which is good because, without it, I might not have been prepared for what faced me when I started listening to (D)IVO (digital), an exceptional (and exceptionally) free jazz album by (DIVO) Saxophone Quartet, a four-piece consisting of tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman, soprano saxophonist Tony Malaby, alto saxophonist Tim Berne, and baritone saxophonist James Carter.

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ROVA Saxophone Quartet’s “The Circumference Of Reason” Review

 

In my never-ending quest to find jazz groups of atypical instrumentation and configuration, it never occurred to me that one possibility might be a quartet where four people play the same kind if instrument. Which may be why — despite recording three dozen albums — I’m only just now hearing about the aptly-named ROVA Saxophone Quartet, courtesy of their new album, The Circumference Of Reason (CD, digital). But if Reason is any indication of what they’ve been up the past 24 years, I have a lot of questing into their back catalog to do.

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Ivo Perelman’s “Brass And Ivory Tales” Review

 

Throughout his career, saxophonist Ivo Perelman has worked with many different musicians, in many different configurations. But some of his best work has come when he’s teamed up with a piano player, be it Karl Berger (2014’s Reverie, 2016’s The Hitchhiker), Borah Bergman (1996’s Geometry), or the half a dozen he’s made with with Matthew Shipp. Which brings us to his new 9-disc boxed set, Brass And Ivory Tales (CD, digital), on which he collaborates with as many iconic piano players, most of whom are making their first appearance in his discography.

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