It’s not that regional big bands are making a comeback. Regional big bands—with top-notch musicians, imaginative compositions, and unique sounds—have never gone away. Many of them, like Count Basie’s Kansas City band or King Oliver’s New Orleans band, moved to bigger cities, where larger audiences and more lucrative opportunities existed. …
Best Known for Their Stirring Chris Cornell Renditions, Superunknown’s Release “You are Never Alone” is a Tribute to Cornell and a Message to Those Struggling with Mental Illness After years of paying homage to the late Chris Cornell by faithfully recreating songs from his deep and, sometimes unexplored catalog, acclaimed …
Chiaroscuro: illumination and darkness. Saxophonist Noah Preminger has always explored sonic contrasts of brightness and shadows to explore human emotions—not to the rigid extreme of tenebrism, but instead, through investigations of the shades in between. Ever since Preminger released his first album, Dry Bridge Road, soon after he graduated from …
In the booklet contained within Elemental Music’s package of Sun Ra’s recordings in Chicago, Marshall Allen, one of the musicians who succeeded Ra in leading his orchestra, states that “Rawas preparing the band for the 21st century.” Well, now is the 21st century. And a new generation of listeners is …
Matt Oakley confirms the ‘opposites attract’ theory in his brand new single “Fire & Water.” Delving into the delicate equilibrium of polarizing personalities in a relationship, Matt Oakley touches on the complexities of love while masterfully coupling these contradictions into a poignant, relatable release. These two seemingly incompatible forces come …
Unexpectedly, the pause in their plans to record Sanctuary was beneficial, as violinist Jason Anick and pianist Jason Yeager later realized. The hard stop that the COVID pandemic imposed upon the world allowed the two musicians to rethink the project and to observe the catastrophic ways that the first-in-a-century epidemic …
The mission of Resonance Records encompasses not only first-time releases of forgotten recorded performances by acknowledged jazz masters like Sonny Rollins or Wes Montgomery. It also provides opportunities for the current generation to discover jazz greats who didn’t attain comparable levels of public awareness. Guitarist Emily Remler eminently deserves appreciation …
One would expect a jazz master like Delfeayo Marsalis to spread his influence beyond the borders of his hometown, New Orleans, to capture the world’s attention, as have his brothers Branford, Wynton, and Jason. As has had jazz itself. When in the nineteenth century Louis Armstrong and other New Orleans …
Heroes and Hangmen is the First Full-Length Record from Ben Wilson and Critically-Acclaimed Drummer Rob Avsharian (Andy Timmons Band, Bobgoblin, The Adventures of Jet, The Julien Kasper Band, Disaster Relief) in More Than a Decade Blues Traveler keyboardist Ben Wilson has announced he is releasing his first full-length studio album in more than a decade with …
Appropriately released during the college football season, the Visions Jazz Ensemble’s Across the Field re-imagines 13 college fight songs traditionally performed by college and university marching bands. No doubt, many of the members of these marching bands—and members of many many others throughout the country who take to the fields …
