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Album Review: BRISKET FOR BREAKFAST (Joe Alterman, featuring Houston Person, with bassist Kevin Smith and drummer Justin Chesarek)
JAZZ WITH JOY: THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS The back cover of the instrumental CD Brisket for Breakfast by the Joe Alterman Trio and their guest, veteran tenor sax man Houston Person, cutely reinforces the album title’s reference to food with two promises worthy of the marriage of a roadside diner and a jazz set. Both…
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Album Review: I WILL (Larry Goldings, piano, with Karl McComas-Reichl, bass, and Christian Euman, percussion)
GOLDINGS HAS THE GOLDEN TOUCH Soloist, sideman, bandleader, pianist, organist, arranger, composer, accompanist to singers (such as James Taylor, John Pizzarelli, Jessica Molaskey, and Norah Jones)… Well, check out Larry Goldings and you’ll note that he checks a lot of boxes and thinks outside the box as a creative jazz man. His latest release, the…
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Album Review: TATUM’S SWINGIN’ SESSION!!! (Tatum Langley and Shout Section Big Band)
PROOF THAT SWING HASN’T GONE OUT OF STYLE If you think big band jazz is a museum piece, Tatum’s Swingin’ Session!!! will blow that notion clear off the bandstand. Under the sharp direction of Brett Dean, Chicago’s own Shout Section Big Band brings brassy swagger and airtight polish to fourteen tracks that feel both reverently…
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Album Review: CHAIN OF LOVE: A BROADWAY ALBUM (Carly Ozard and Friends)
SHOWTUNES AS NON-STOP SHOWSTOPPERS With a gloriously gargantuan voice, plus energy and heart in substantial supply, Carly Ozard doesn’t hold back or back off from the challenge of tackling a wide range of musical theatre styles and character types in Chain of Love: A Broadway Album. With that voluminous variety and the program’s prominent presence…
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Album Review: SONG OF THE BIRDS (Avi Avital with Between Worlds Ensemble)
Mediterranean Synthesis and the Mandolin’s New Territory The mandolin hovers at the edge of respectability in contemporary classical music, neither fish nor fowl, too folksy for Carnegie Hall, too precious for the village taverna. Avi Avital refuses the categorization. His Song of the Birds presents twenty tracks that work as musical archaeology, uncovering connections that…
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Album Review: HIGH STANDARDS (The Billy Lester Trio)
STANDARDS, UNSTANDARDIZED With High Standards, pianist Billy Lester reminds us that reinvention isn’t just possible in jazz — it’s the point. You may not need high standards to listen to this joy-filled album, but you will certainly have high standards after! Joined by bassist Marcello Testa and drummer Nicola Stranieri, Lester plunges into the American…
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Album Review: WOODLAND SONGS (Dover Quartet; Music of Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha’ Tate, Pura Fé, and Dvořák)
STRINGS OF THE SPIRIT: DOVER QUARTET’S WOODLAND REVERIE Woodland Songs is a wondrous, deeply American musical journey that feels both timeless and urgently of the moment. The Dover Quartet—never content to coast on their accolades—has once again pushed boundaries with a moving and masterfully performed album that connects Chickasaw and Tuscarora traditions to the classical…
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Cabaret Review: TESSA SOUTER (“Shadows and Silence: The Erik Satie Project” Album Release at Joe’s Pub)
SOUTER SATISFIES WITH SATIE & SINCERITY In a presentation that featured many self-penned, self-revealing lyrics – an album release show by singer Tessa Souter and her band made for an evening that was intimate, intense, intriguing, and involved to the Nth degree. The concert at Joe’s Pub on the first night of July was, first…
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Album Review: SMASH (Original Broadway Cast on Concord)
They Just Keep Moving The Line: Smash Cast Recording Crosses Into Broadway Gold The alchemy has finally occurred. After thirteen years, Smash has completed its metamorphosis from cult television curiosity to bona fide Broadway treasure, crystallized in its original cast recording released digitally on May 16, 2025. What emerges is theatrical archaeology at its finest….
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Obituary: CONNIE FRANCIS (Dec. 12, 1937 – July 16, 2025)
THE VOICE THAT BRIDGED WORLDS The obituaries flooding social media following Connie Francis’s death on July 16th focus predictably on her record sales (over 200 million albums worldwide) and her historical firsts—she was the first woman to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960 with “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” Yet such statistics, impressive…
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