I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 450 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll offer hot takes on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.
Alto saxophonist David Bixler recently emerged from a nearly decade-long recording silence following a family medical emergency. The title of his third post-return release, “Inside the Grief,” points to that experience, but it is a response to the horrific events of the year that is mercifully about to end. Like a lot of new recordings we’re likely to hear in 2021, “Inside the Grief” keeps the instrumental forces lean, but strong.
I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 450 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll offer hot takes on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.
Lately, a lot of music from Argentina has been finding it’s way to me via the ears&eyes Records label documenting what seems to be a vibrant improvised music scene. Earlier this year I reviewed Camilla Nebbia’s “Aura,” which fell just outside my ten favorite releases of 2020. Unilke Nebbia, whose name was completely new to me, pianist Leo Genovese, formerly the pianist in Esperanza Spalding’s band, is a known quantity.
I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 450 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll offer hot takes on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.
To celebrate her 60th birthday year in 2019, pianist Satoko Fujii released an album a month. With a work ethic like that, no mere global pandemic could keep her down. “Prickly Pear Cactus” (Libra Records) is presumably her final release of 2020, though with Fujii, you never know. It’s really more of a collective effort by the Kobe, Japan-based pianist, her husband Natsuke Tamura on trumpet and New York laptop
I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 450 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So every week, I’ll do quick hits on the releases of the preceding seven days. it’s a great writing exercise, and a lot of fun, too.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, the old saying goes. So, when you’re planning your debut CD release, why not surround yourself with some highly accomplished A-listers? That’s what Jeff Ellwood did on “The Sounds Around theHouse,” and it pays off
For about 35 years I prowled various dark corners of the advertising/PR/marketing world, a place that’s governed by deadlines. To maintain my sanity, and to feel that I might contribute something to the world, I started writing cultural journalism as a newspaper freelancer. Both of those paths have come to an end (though I’m keeping my fingers crossed about my newspaper gig returning), but I still crave the adrenaline rush of a deadline. Like caffeine, a deadline is a stressor I simply can’t seem to live without.
To be sure, I’m still writing. That much can be confirmed by scrolling through this blog, but somehow, blogging didn’t satisfy the way bylines did. So I went looking for some, and I found Rob Shepherd, publisher of PostGenre Media, through my membership in the Jazz Journalists Association. Through Rob’s kindness, I’ve published three reviews there with more on the way. You can read them here.
All About Jazz has been around a long time, but I never thought of asking to write for it. A few weeks ago, with the encouragement of Mark Corotto, an AAJ contributor whose Xeroxed newsletter published my first jazz writing a very long time ago, I joined the AAJ staff. My first review for the site, of Dafnis Prieto’s “Transparency,” can be read here.
I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to publish in places that are not, well, this place. No, I’m not going to give up the blog. And who knows, these new writing assignments might unleash a flood of creativity that will spill over to let’s call this. That’s the kind of motivation a bunch of deadlines can provide.
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Alto saxophonist David Bixler recently emerged from a nearly decade-long recording silence following a family medical emergency. The title of his third post-return release, “Inside the Grief,” points to that experience, but it is a response to the horrific events of the year that is mercifully about to end. Like a lot of new recordings we’re likely to hear in 2021, “Inside the Grief” keeps the instrumental forces lean, but strong. 
