Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet: Intents and Purposes Feb19
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Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet: Intents and Purposes

It is highly likely that no period in jazz history has so thoroughly split opinions on the value and quality of its output as did the decade of the 1970’s. And it was in the realm of amplified, hedonistic jazz-rock, or fusion as it is more commonly known, where that split became most...

Telemann: Sonatas, Trios & Concerti / L’Accademia Giocosa Feb12
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Telemann: Sonatas, Trios & Concerti / L’...

Oehms Classics has released this collection of six sonatas, trios and concerti by Telemann, all but one appearing as a world premiere recording. Playing on period instruments, L’Accademia Giocosa (‘playful’) is made up of members of the Bavarian Radio Symphony, together with...

William Wallace: Creation Symphony; Pelléas and Mélisande; Prelude to The Eumenides / Brabbins, BBC Scottish SO Feb07
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William Wallace: Creation Symphony; Pelléas and Mé...

If you missed this album of Scottish composer William Wallace’s orchestral music when it was first issued by Hyperion in the late ’90s, you have another chance to obtain it with this reissue on the label’s mid-price Helios line - at about half the price of the original....

Marc Perrenoud Trio: Vestry Lamento Feb04
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Marc Perrenoud Trio: Vestry Lamento

The Swiss composer and jazz pianist Marc Perrenoud has released a delightfully hip new trio record entitled Vestry Lamento. Produced by Double Moon Records Label & Challenge Records International, the album was first released in Europe in October of 2013, and has recently been made...

Jean-Michel Damase: Symphonie; Piano Concerto No. 2; Concertino; Flute Concerto Feb01
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Jean-Michel Damase: Symphonie; Piano Concerto No. ...

The Dutton record label initially built its reputation issuing audiophile-quality transfers from 78-rpm shellac discs recorded between 1920 and 1970. While the label has continued this avenue of activity, it also issues world-premiere recordings of little-known but deserving works by...

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Stephen Paulus (1949-2014): Concerto & Orches...

For those listeners not familiar with the work of the American composer Stephen Paulus, this recent release from Naxos serves as an excellent introduction, offering superb performances of Paulus’s orchestral music from Giancarlo Guerrero and his Nashville Symphony. Paulus was born in Summit,...

Georgy Catoire (1861-1926): Piano Music / Marc-André Hamelin, piano Jan26
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Georgy Catoire (1861-1926): Piano Music / Marc-And...

This recording on Hyperion’s mid-priced Helios imprint was made in 1998. If you missed it the first time around, you can, and should, remedy that now. The music is performed by long-time Hyperion artist, Marc-André Hamelin, a pianist who time and again has exposed the extraordinary...

Chris Potter Underground Orchestra: ‘Imaginary Cities’ Jan22
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Chris Potter Underground Orchestra: ‘Imagina...

Saxophonist and composer Chris Potter’s triumphant, expansive, visionary and boundary-blurring new release Imaginary Cities marks his second as leader for the ECM label, following 2012’s “The Sirens.” The creative impulse here stems, in part, as Chris himself puts it, from a...

Billy Hart Quartet: One Is the Other Jan20
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Billy Hart Quartet: One Is the Other

Billy Hart has done as much as anyone alive to master the vocabulary of jazz drumming. Mr. Hart (b. 1940) has been the beat behind over 500 albums by artists ranging from Sam & Dave to Pharoah Sanders. With The Montgomery Brothers and Jimmy Smith in the ‘60s, Miles Davis and Herbie...

Joaquin Turina: Chamber Music for Strings and Piano / Lincoln Trio Jan18
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Joaquin Turina: Chamber Music for Strings and Pian...

Much of the music of Joaquín Turina (1882 – 1949) is reasonably well represented on disc, including his songs, pieces for solo piano and for guitar, and some of his orchestral works. In the area of chamber music, however, aside from a few of his most popular pieces, little has been...

Vijay Iyer (composer, piano, electronics): Mutations Jan14
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Vijay Iyer (composer, piano, electronics): Mutatio...

Vijay Iyer should be familiar to both jazz enthusiasts and people interested in creative new music of all sorts. He has collaborated with artists from Amiri Baraka to John Zorn on record labels from Asian Improv to Sunnyside. It is not only his piano playing and composing that has won him a...

Xavier Desandre Navarre: In-Pulse Dec30
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Xavier Desandre Navarre: In-Pulse

The French jazz composer and percussionist Xavier Desandre Navarre has released a promising first album as bandleader entitled In-Pulse, on the Jazz Village label. He has assembled a tremendous combo behind him that enlists two upright bass players, Stéphane Kerecki and Bruno Rousselet, and...