Michael Dease: Coming Home

This 30-year-old Wycliffe Gordon-mentored ’bonist has a quintet of Christian McBride (Dease plays in his big band), performing a post-bop...

Reviewed by Selwyn Harris in issue: March/2018

Ryan Truesdell: Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans

Charles Pillow | Dave Pietro | Donny McCaslin | Frank Kimbrough | Gil Evans | Greg Gisbert | James Chirillo | Jay Anderson | Joe Locke | Kate McGarry

A fascinating project that exhumes previously unrecorded scores by Evans, for a top-ranking New York personnel. Five of them were...

Reviewed by Brian Priestley in issue: October/2012

Bansangu Orchestra

Alex Wilson | Andy Greenwood | Barnaby Dickinson | Davide Mantovani | Edwin Sanz | Gemma Moore | Giorgio Serci | Jason Yarde | Kevin Robinson | Martin Gladdish

Bansangu are a talent-packed world-music big band – co-founded by energetic UK session-saxophonist sessionsaxophonist Paul Booth, Sardinian guitarist Giorgio Serci...

Reviewed by John Fordham in issue: November/2018

Count Basie: Swinging The Blues

Al Killian | Benny Morton | Bill Johnson | Bobby Moore | Buck Clayton | Buddy Tate | Butch Ballard | C. Q. Price | Clark Terry | Coleman Hawkins

Back in the days of LPs, if you wanted a comprehensive history of the ‘Old Testament’ Basie band on record,...

Reviewed by Alyn Shipton in issue: July/2019

Louis Smith: The Legendary 1957-59 Studio Sessions

Art Taylor | Booker Little | Calvin Newborn | Cannonball Adderley | Charlie Rouse | Doug Watkins | Duke Jordan | Frank Strozier | George Coleman | George Joyner

So let's hear it one more time for the late Tom Wilson (1931-1978) – a true visionary who produced numerous...

Reviewed by Roy Carr in issue: February/2017

Andrea Keller & Five Below: Life is Brut[if]al

Anrea Keller

Andrea Keller formed Five Below in 2017 for her regular Monday night gig at Melbourne's Jazzlab. Their first album Five...

Reviewed by Stuart Nicholson in issue: October/2020

Down For The Count: At The Cold Stores

Max Fagandini

I first heard this local ensemble and their tidy versions of swing classics a year or so ago, their youthful...

Reviewed by Peter Vacher in issue: June/2021

Jimmie Lunceford: Complete Decca Sessions

Claude Trenier | Dan Grissom | Eddie Durham | Eddie Wilcox | Gerald Wilson | Jimmie Lunceford | Jimmy Crawford | Joe Marshall | Joe Thomas | Paul Webster

Lunceford ran the highly popular big band that big band fans seem to have forgotten about. Maybe this has something...

Reviewed by Brian Priestley in issue: March/2012

Matthew Ottignon: Volant

Hannah James | Holly Conner | Lauren Tsamouras | Matthew Ottignon

If, at times, the Earshift label has (on some titles at least) erred towards the weird, the occasionally wonderful and...

Reviewed by Stuart Nicholson in issue: September/2024

Trio M: The Guest House

Mark Dresser | Matt Wilson | Myra Melford

Away from the collectivist-utopian impulses of free-jazz and improv, generally speaking, even the most egalitarian of jazz piano trios tend...

Reviewed by Daniel Spicer in issue: May/2012