by S. Victor Aaron Like many of the greatest American musicians, Miles Davis has had a comeback—he’s had four or five of them, actually—but only one where he came back from not playing at all. It was also his least successful one in the short run. The 1975-1981 retirement was a period where Miles watched a lot of TV, and [...]

by Pico Acoustic bassist Harvie S has appeared on over 350 recordings for a very good reason. He has an unshakeable sense of swing, a flawless tone and otherworldly dexterity on his instrument. For a example of his amazing technique, just eyeball the video I embedded in a recent review of a Carol Morgan record. I can only shake my [...]

by Pico Rufus Reid has never had the flamboyant, edgy comportment of, say, Charles Mingus, but for decades now, he’s been a first-call bassist for many of the finest jazz (and even non-jazz) musicians. Making his way to the top level of bottom pluckers via stints in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, Dexter Gordon’s quartet and a co-led band with [...]

by Pico When you look at what the pianist from Palermo, Sicily has already accomplished, any new release by Salvatore Bonafede should be a highly anticipated one. A Berklee grad, Bonafede has played with Jerry Bergonzi, John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Tim Berne, John Abercrombie, Lester Bowie, Tom Harrell, Dave Douglas and fellow Italian Enrico Rava. He’s led records that has [...]

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 Pico We’re not even four months into 2009 and already we’re here for the third time since February celebrating a new Chick Corea release. In February, it was piano/piano face-off with Hiromi called Duet, in March it was the live document of Return To Forever’s triumphant return Returns, and today it’s about another nostalgia trip on the stage, Five [...]

By Pico This installment of Quickies is aimed at introducing to you, Dear Reader, some amazing jazz musicians who may not have shown up on your radar screen yet: Jake Hertzog Chromatosphere Here’s a guitarist who is a 2007 graduate of Berklee, won the Montreaux Jazz Guitar Competition the prior year, came back to the festival the following year and [...]

by Pico Finally, a musician with a one-letter last name I can actually embrace. Harvie S was the rock-solid bassist who firmly anchored Linda Presgrave’s completely enjoyable Inspiration CD, released last month. It’s only the latest notch in a long career that’s found S paired with such legends as John Scofield, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Jim Hall, Michael [...]