Digby Fairweather & Stan Barker: The Definitive Duets Vol. 1

Stan Barker | Digby Fairweather

Fairweather rates his playing on these duet tracks as among the very best he has put on record. Originally issued...

Reviewed by Peter Vacher in issue: March/2016

Wild Bill Davison: The Jazz Giants

Assembled in Canada in 1968 this stellar band with Herb Hall and Benny Morton sounds like a latterday Condon ensemble...

Reviewed by Alyn Shipton in issue: March/2016

Magnus Bakken Quartet featuring George Garzone: Cycles

Jørn Ølen | Magnus Bakken | George Garzone | Christian Meaas Svendsen | Jon Audun Baar

Norwegian saxophonist Bakken spent four years at Berklee, where Garzone was one of his teachers, and this debut album neatly...

Reviewed by Peter Bacon in issue: March/2016

Marcus Printup: Young Bloods

Allyn Johnson | Ulysses Owens | Marcus Printup | Coleman Hughes | Dezron Douglas | Patrick Bartley

As a newcomer in his 20s, the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra trumpeter was given a leg up by mature...

Reviewed by Peter Bacon in issue: March/2016

Various Artists: The Complete BeeHive Sessions

Dizzy Reece | Walter Booker | Bill Hardman | Billy Taylor | Arnett Cobb | Joe Morello | Frank Wess | Jimmy Cobb | Curtis Fuller | Dave Holland

Here is a forcible reminder that Wynton Marsalis didn’t start the back-to-hard-bop movement in the 1980s but, rather like Miles...

Reviewed by Brian Priestley in issue: March/2016

Bob Brookmeyer: Blues Hot and Cold

Early 1960s small group jazz in two sessions from the valve trombonist (and occasional pianist), in which the quartet set...

Reviewed by Alyn Shipton in issue: February/2016

Matt Mitchell: Vista Accumulation

Dan Weiss | Matt Mitchell | Chris Speed | Chris Tordoni

The 40-year-old Philadelphian contemporary jazz pianist and composer Matt Mitchell has earned a pedigree in recent years, recording with vanguardists...

Reviewed by Selwyn Harris in issue: February/2016

Art Blakey: The Complete Columbia And RCA Albums Collection:

Doug Watkins | Bill Hardman | Donald Byrd | Benny Golson | Wilbur Ware | Wynton Kelly | Ray Bryant | Jacke McLean | Gana M’Bow | Wayne Shorter

The whole mythology that’s attached to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers essentially revolves around the numerous albums they recorded for Blue...

Reviewed by Roy Carr in issue: February/2016

Opus Five: Tickle

Alex Sipiagin | Boris Koslov | David Kikoski | Donald Edwards | Seamus Blake

For five musicians as busy as these – all members of the Mingus Big Band at one time or another...

Reviewed by Peter Bacon in issue: February/2016

Mike Mainieri: Journey Thru An Electric Tube

Darren Bernhardt | Joe Beck | Sam Brown | Donald MacDonald | Sally Waring | Chuck Rainey | Hal Gaylor | Jeremy Steig | Mike Mainieri

Even in their 1980s heyday, fusion outfit Steps Ahead could be a touch on the glossy side – white-toothed purveyors...

Reviewed by Daniel Spicer in issue: February/2016