Drummer Dan Brubeck, son of the late Dave Brubeck, pays homage to his parents in a most appropriate way. He puts the proper frame around the songbook created by his mother and father over their 70-year performance career. Using the saxophone quartet format his father blazed jazz trails with, Brubeck leads his quartet through 14 Brubeck originals at Vancouver's Cellar recorded in August 2013. Bassist Adam Thomas proves to be a fine vocalist for the special material, never obscuring the pieces with technical attempts to impress. Urbane and amiable, this collection has been a long time coming and now that it is here, we can fully appreciate the art of Dave and Iola Brubeck.

John Lee Hooker, as anyone with a decent-sized blues collection knows, recorded for a virtual parade of labels early in his career, including Chess, although his stays with the company were fairly brief. Hooker's best early recordings, most would agree, were issued on Modern and Vee-Jay, not Chess.

This is an enjoyable date of Dixieland, emphasizing familiar warhorses. Trumpeter Bob Scobey is in his usual consistent form and is assisted in the frontline by trombonist Jack Buck and clarinetist Bill Napier. Banjoist Clancy Hayes has six excellent vocals (particularly "Curse of an Aching Heart" and "Travelin' Shoes"), and the spirit and high musicianship overcome the familiar repertoire.

One of the distinguishing features of Schubert's C major Quintet is its scoring for two cellos instead of the more usual two violas. It seems likely that Boccherini's and Georges Onslow's preference for the second cello influenced Schubert's choice of this instrumentation, whose greater expressiveness and richer sonority are particularly suited to this music.

The reissue game continues. All of this material has been available more or less continuously in recent years, with the exception of Frühbeck's Three-Cornered Hat, which only resurfaced quite recently on an EMI twofer accompanied by Atlántida. The reason it reappears here, evidently, stems from the fact that this two-disc set contains all of Victoria de Los Angeles' stereo Falla recordings; and despite the fact that she sings for about 60 seconds in total in "Hat", it's always a pleasure to hear Frühbeck's big-hearted, expansively Romantic but always exciting way with the music.

One of Constellation’s most pivotal contributors, Canadian violinist Jessica Moss, takes the solo spotlight to afford a stunning glimpse of her personal sonic weltanschauung in a rare, captivating away day from the GY!BE, Vic Chesnutt, Black Ox Orkestar, A Silver Mt. Zion and Carl Bozulich ensembles that she frequents.

Methodical design, rough-and-tumble play, and thoughtful exchange are often viewed as mutually exclusive concepts in jazz. Saxophonist Michaël Attias' Nerve Dance, however, obliterates that line of thinking and any potential obstacles that could separate those realms. This is a work that's cultured, contumacious, and conversational in nature. It's principled art unbound.

Gary Bartz - Anthology (2004) {Soul Brother Records CD SBPJ 23}
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© 1970s, 2004 Soul Brother Records / Passion Music | CD SBPJ 23
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Modern Creative / Soul Jazz

Soul Brother has given us a long overdue compilation of Gary Bartz's experimental jazz material from the 1970s, beginning with his classic Harlem Bush Music albums, Taifa and Uhuru from 1970 and 1971, with his band NTU Troop. While it's impossible to overstate the influence his brief tenure with Miles Davis had on him (Bartz is featured on the Live-Evil recordings), the saxophonist and composer was exploring other avenues of creative black music as well, from funk to soul to the blues. The 12 cuts here begin with the sublime "Celestial Blues," from that seminal NTU Troop debut set.