Category: Reviews

This is where I will post my thoughts about my favorite classical or jazz CDs and sometimes survey the various recordings of a specific piece.

The Orlando Consort’s latest installment in their complete survey of the music of Guillaume de Machaut : The Gentle Physician

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Guillaume de Machaut (c1300–1377) is considered now, as he was in his own day, the most significant French poet and composer of the fourteenth century. Sometimes described as ‘the last of the trouvères’ because of his dual talents as wordsmith and musician, Machaut built on past traditions yet spearheaded a new school of lyric composition. … Continue reading The Orlando Consort’s latest installment in their complete survey of the music of Guillaume de Machaut : The Gentle Physician

Abigail Washburn : clawhammer banjo player and singer

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Abigail Washburn is an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet, experimental group The Wu Force, and as a duo with her husband Béla Fleck. If American old-time music is about taking earlier, simpler ways of life … Continue reading Abigail Washburn : clawhammer banjo player and singer

Chris Coole : Clawhammer banjo and more

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Chris Coole got his first banjo when he was 17 years old after falling in love with the sounds of folk and early country music. Today, Chris is known internationally for his clawhammer banjo style, songwriting, and singing. Early on, Chris discovered the joys of busking. His practice halls were the streets and subway of … Continue reading Chris Coole : Clawhammer banjo and more

John Prine’s latest is among his best

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On his first album of new songs in over 13 years, John Prine’s new songs on The Tree of Forgiveness are presented with ragged simplicity and homey cheer. Then the veteran tunesmith moves to songs of stark resolve. But, just as you think his world has gone off the cliff, Prine ends the record with … Continue reading John Prine’s latest is among his best

Van Morrison : You’re Driving Me Crazy

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You’re Driving Me Crazy is the third album Van Morrison has released since September of 2017, when he delivered the hard-charging blues of Roll With the Punches. In December, he put out Versatile, an amiable collection grounded by standards that found him moving toward jazz. Morrison’s newest release delves even deeper into the genre, pairing the 1960s legend with jazz … Continue reading Van Morrison : You’re Driving Me Crazy

New from Anna & Elizabeth : “The Invisible Comes to Us”

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Folk music is a funny term these days. We refer to folk music as almost anything a singer/songwriter does with an acoustic instrument.  Record stores in the 1970s, would put Simon and Garfunkel in the folk section, as was Dylan and Joan Baez, James Taylor. But the musicians who inspired those musicians were Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, … Continue reading New from Anna & Elizabeth : “The Invisible Comes to Us”

Dufay Re-Imagined by John Potter and Ambrose Field

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When The Hilliard Ensemble collaborated with Norwegian Jan Garbarek on Officium (ECM, 1994) and the follow-up Mnemosyne (ECM, 1999), who knew that the combination of vocal music, ranging from pre-AD Greece to contemporary times, would mesh so beautifully with the legendary saxophonist's soaring improvisations? With Being Dufay, released in 2009 on ECM's classical New Series imprint, the label has taken … Continue reading Dufay Re-Imagined by John Potter and Ambrose Field

Nothing Ever Was, Anyway: Music of Annette Peacock

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Nothing Ever Was, Anyway: Music of Annette Peacock is an album by pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Paul Motian recorded in 1996 and released on the ECM label. Annette Peacock (born 1941) is an American composer, singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, and musician. She is a pioneer in electronic music who combined her voice with one of the first Moog synthesizers … Continue reading Nothing Ever Was, Anyway: Music of Annette Peacock

Stefano Battaglia Trio : Interprets Alec Wilder

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Stefano Battaglia (1965 , Milan) is an Italian classical and jazz pianist. He has played extensively on the international circuit, performing as a soloist with the European Youth Orchestra in Barcelona (1981), and winning the "J.S. Bach Festival" award in Düsseldorf as the best new pianist of the year (1986) and the Brussels National Radio Award as the best young European pianist … Continue reading Stefano Battaglia Trio : Interprets Alec Wilder

The Tomasz Stanko Quartets : Polish and New York

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Tomasz Stańko is a Polish trumpeter, composer and improviser. Often recording for ECM Records, Stańko is strongly associated with free jazz and the avant-garde. Coming to prominence in the early 1960s alongside pianist Adam Makowicz in the Jazz Darings, Stańko later collaborated with pianist Krzysztof Komeda, notably on Komeda's pivotal 1966 album Astigmatic. In 1968, Stańko formed an acclaimed quintet that included Zbigniew Seifert on … Continue reading The Tomasz Stanko Quartets : Polish and New York