jazz2love

Album:  Unfoldings Ian Wardenski Quintet Label Name: Self-Released Website:  http://ianwardenski.com https://ianwardenskiquintet.hearnow.com Unfoldings is the third offering from Ian Wardenski Quintet, featuring Wardenski's wife, soprano vocalist Tamara Tucker.   The recording is a five-movement suite composed by guitarist Wardenski.  Joining him are alto saxophonist Mercedes Beckman, pianist Savino Palumbo, bassist Amy Shook, and drummer Frank Russo.  Experimenting with rhythmic patterns and phrasing, Wardenski illustrates his leanings as a theorist, integrating erratic movements and constructs that randomly shift.  The compositions are orderly in a sporadic and chaotic fashion with instruments spreading, spiraling, flaring and withdrawing in an arbitrary formation. Tumultuous and fiery, "Movement I" is orderly chaos with each musician inputing dynamic verses to the cooperative.   Shook opens "Movement II" with bowing bass lines, which are ...

Album:  Beatin' The Odds Artist:  Leigh Pilzer's Seven Pointed Star Label: Strange Woman Records Website: leighpilzer.com Label Website: strangewomanrecords.com The current project of saxophonist, composer, arranger, and educator Leigh Pilzer is creating a library of compositions and arrangements for her septet, Leigh Pilzer’s Seven Pointed Star. The group’s debut recording, Beatin' The Odds , released in March, 2024, includes eight of Pilzer’s original compositions and one by long-time DIVA colleague, bassist Amy Shook.  That one being the title track, a bebop jazz romp garnished in the flashing bellows of the saxophone flares moored by the pulsating thrums of Shook's bass and the stocky beats of drummer Sherrie Maricle, the leader of DIVA. The press release sites Pilzer's words about the recording, “the music on this recording was written between September 2017 and October 2023, a period that included life-changing events both personal (a cancer diagnosis) and uni...

Album:  Being Artist:  Chris Rottmayer Label:  Shifting Paradigm Website:  chrisrottmayer.com Freelance jazz artist, composer, educator, and pianist Chris Rottmayer releases his fourth recording Being .  His recording is comprised of all original compositions, written as part of a study of the jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller, and Miller's materials with the Woody Shaw Quintet. Rottmayer calls Madison, Wisconsin his home where is a Lecturer of Music Theory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. and where his mentors were instrumental in connecting him with acoustic bassist Rufus Reid, who collaborated often with Miller. Reid joins Rottmayer on Being along with Russ Johnson on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Matt Endres on drums.  Rottmayer travels between jam-inspired arrangements like "On The Street Where Woody Lives" and "Re-United" and elegant scores like "Pigalle" and "Pont Neuf."  The two former tracks are part of the Miller study, and the two ...

Album:  Spirit Artist:  Peter Calandra Website:  https://www.petecalandramusic.com/   Spirit , the latest release from neo-classical composer and chamber jazz pianist Peter Calandra, illustrates reflections brought to the canvas in melodic form.  From soothing lullabys to majestic landscapes, the music is expressive, introspective, and deeply sentimental.  Calandra's solo works demonstrate his keen melodic sensibilities and instinctive sense of synchronicity.  A native of orchestral tones and organic musings, Calandra creates fluidly versed stories, garnished in glittering notes and ethereal emanations. The compositions flow seamlessly, turning another page in the recording's journal with each track.  The earthy textures of his keys ruminate with an intuitive stroke along "The Weight," transitioning into the pensive mood of "Reflective Romance," puncturing the track with swirling doodles on the piano keys, peppered lightly across the melodic progr...

Album:  Becoming Marlene Dietrich Artist:  Myriam Phiro Label:  Self-Released Website:  www.myriamphiro.com Smooth jazz vocalist Myriam Phiro introduces a new generation of music listeners to jazz standards that made Marlene Dietrich famous in her time from the 1920's to 1940's with Phiro's new release Becoming Marlene Dietrich .  Although Phiro immerses herself in melodies that had been Dietrich's trademark tunes, Phiro tailors the songs to her likeness.  Her illustrious mezzo-soprano register is higher on the vocal spectrum than Dietrich's contralto pitch, which stamps the tracks with her own unique nuances and inflections.  Her treatment of the verses is finessed with a distinctly soft, feminine touch and a delightfully, hypnotic resonance, setting her style apart from Dietrich's. Her vocals cradle the lyrics of "Quand L’Amour Meurt," written by Georges Crémieux and Octave Millandy, with a warmth that penetrates the listener's soul as Hyuna Park...