photo: Jazz Eyes Records by S. Victor Aaron BANN is a jazz supergroup of sorts, consisting of saxophonist Seamus Blake, bassist Jay Anderson, guitarist Oz Noy and drummer Adam Nussbaum. We know how supergroups can be hit-or-miss affairs; either egos clash and the different voices don’t click together, or they come together naturally to create something that can be very [...]

by S. Victor Aaron Here we are at Volume 6, and while there’s still a few dozen CD’s that are worthy of mention sitting on my shelves or lying somewhere on the floor, this is likely going to be the last installment of “Pico’s 2010 Stacks.” A post-Thanksgiving version covering a few major 2010 jazz releases that we’ve missed here [...]

Photo: Shawn Brickbill/High Two by Pico It’s been quite a while since the bassist and composer Michael Formanek has led a date but with his ECM debut The Rub And Spare Change, he’s more than made up for lost time. Out since October 12, The Rub marks his return as a leader since the solo bass recording Am I Bothering [...]

by Pico Even as a small child growing up in Japan, jazz pianist Hiroe Sekine loved to pick out melodies she heard, such as the Japanese folk tunes emanating from her Mom’s pedal organ. Today represents a culmination of that life long passion with the release of her debut album A-mé, which means “rain” in Japanese. Sekine chose to present [...]

by S. Victor Aaron Last Tuesday, HighNote Records furnished two new CD’s, each by established veterans of the jazz scene. Look on the back of just about any classic Blue Note album from the 60s, and you’re likely to see Joe Chambers’ name listed as the drummer. And while there’s no notable drum solos to be found on those records, [...]

by Pico I find that much of jazz is taking someone else’s tune and make it into something new. The trick is to do so without casting off the thing (or things) that made it such a great tune to cover to begin with. But who can take Joe Henderson‘s modal madness of “Inner Urge”, update it with modern touches [...]

by S. Victor Aaron This article makes it twenty-three albums covered in the span of eight days, which put a nice dent in my backlog, and there’s just a couple more to go before turning our attention to the year 2009 in music. The batch of records covered here draws attention to jazz veterans and rooks alike who are off [...]

by S. Victor Aaron So let’s see… The saxophonist has played for such big names in jazz, soul and pop such as Nile Rodgers, The Crusaders, Aretha Franklin, Mike Stern, Dave Liebman and The Temptations. Eleven of his own records have appeared on the music charts. The trumpet player has played behind Elton John, Paul Simon, David Sanborn, Levon Helm [...]

by Pico An uber-talented young gal from Oregon with a fresh, delightful debut record that brings back to life classic American music of prior generations. That’s what I said in a nutshell about Diane Birch’s Bible Belt, but this time, the buzz is about Hailey Niswanger. Ms. Niswanger (pronounced NICE-wonger) plies her trade in a much different musical arena, though, [...]

The last two Quickies were an investigation of jazz records only. We’re still hacking through some recent noteworthy jazz records of different stripes, but this time, I threw in some non-jazz right at the end. Still on a blues bent that started with coverage of Shemekia Copeland’s and Joe Bonamassa’s latest offerings earlier this week, it wouldn’t feel right to [...]