Tag: Jazz

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Keith Jarrett’s No End Review

To those with unadventurous ears, Keith Jarrett’s No End (CD, digital) might seem like apt title for this new (though not newly-recorded) album. Driven by Santana-esque guitars and rhythms, and employing rather loose structures, the tracks on this instrumental collection harkens back to the work Jarrett did with Miles Davis on such epic jazz-rock fusion albums as 1971’s A Tribute To Jack Johnson, 1970’s Miles Davis At Fillmore: Live At The Fillmore East, and 1971’s Live-Evil. But for those of us who appreciate loosely-structured, atmospheric instrumental soundscapes, calling this No End couldn’t be a less appropriate.

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MUSIC REVIEW: Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard, Steve Swallow’s Trios

With a jazz trio consisting of Steve Swallow on bass, a pianist with the last name of Bley, a horn player, and no drummer, it’s understandable that the new album Trios (ECM) by Swallow, pianist Carla Bley, and saxophonist Andy Sheppard might make some fans of dark and moody jazz think of the Jimmy Giuffre 3, the early-’60s trio which consisted of Swallow, pianist Paul Bley (Carla’s then husband), and Giuffre on clarinet. But while Trios has a similarly dark mood and palette, that’s where the similarities end.

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Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette: Somewhere Review

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, and Jack DeJohnette

 

It would be easy to dismiss Somewhere (CD, digital) as just another live album by the jazz trio of pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Because, quite frankly, that’s what it is.

But that kind of misses the point. Instead, Somewhere is really yet another great live album by the best jazz trio around, and arguably the strongest album this threesome has produced.

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John Coltrane: “Sun Ship: The Complete Session” Review

 

In 1971, four years after jazz saxophonist John Coltrane passed away, his wife Alice assembled some songs he’d recorded in 1965 for the posthumous album Sun Ship.

But rather than just released them as they had originally been recorded, Alice Coltrane had a couple of the tracks edited, and even combined two different versions of a song into a single tune.

Now, more than thirty years later, and six years after Alice’s passing, the uncut versions of those original sessions are finally being released as Sun Ship The Complete Session (CD, vinyl), a double disc set that includes every note Coltrane and his band recorded that day.

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