Play This!
Play This! is a platform to share your prized musical discoveries (past or present) with your fellow readers. Recommend a favorite song, album, or performance here.
Daniel Bennett Group: The Hills of Beijing
by Scott Lichtman
Daniel Bennett has carved out a unique jazz sound, recognized via numerous reviews and awards for the Daniel Bennett Group. Compositions change keys and meter quickly, sometimes from bar-to-bar-to-bar, yet the melody and improvisations follow a smooth, logical path. The arrangements are compact, with instrumentations that can hint at folk or soundtrack music. Bennett's tone across woodwinds is consistently sweet. Although the supporting musicians have changed over the years, the band is always perfectly locked in. A great point from ...
read moreHill Collective: Tonal Prophecy
by Adam Nolan
Improvisation meets The Wizard of Oz. Sun Ra meets a community choir vibe. Saxophone, trombone, and trumpet shake the ceiling, and the electric bass takes us into some kind of rhumba. Hill Collective from Brighton, UK, has something to tell us. There is a hip vibe to this. Accessibility is visible, as is the accuracy of parts played. The house is eerie yet still interesting and inspiring enough to enter the door to a land of forgotten dreams. ...
read moreBaşak Yavuz: Promised Lands
by Scott Lichtman
Vocalist and composer Başak Yavuz is intense. The lyrics of Promised Lands" state that someone told me to release the animal," which is exactly she and her band do. Drums and electric bass propel a free jazz-like feel with tinges of James Brown, while the guitar and voice open by harmonizing a tight, descending harmony that sounds like Chopsticks" gone awry. Yavuz's voice is elastic; her lyrics, evocative. When all this is combined, her music is attention-grabbing and catchy. Based ...
read moreAngelique Kidjo: Crosseyed and Painless
by Geno Thackara
How to tackle a high-energy classic packed with layers of overlapping rhythms? Perhaps by giving it some unexpected breathing space. Angelique Kidjo's Afro-chant treatment (much like the Talking Heads whole-album cover from which it comes) is just as intense as the source, but interestingly smolders more than burns, in a way rather more moody and bewitching. ...
read moreTroker: Principe Charro
by Mike Jacobs
Troker's music may be tough to pigeonhole but if the description Mariachi band meets Snarky Puppy to drop acid at Frank Zappa's house" doesn't intrigue you enough to listen, it's hard to know what will. From their self-released 2014 album, Crimen Sonoro. ...
read moreWorld Saxophone Quartet: Take The 'A' Train
by Scott Lichtman
The World Saxophone Quartet has always created a buzz... literally. Pioneers in jazz woodwinds, WSO combined instrumental prowess with sophisticated orchestrations and a wide repertoire encompassing jazz standards, free jazz, blues, world rhythms, and politicized songs. The original group from the '70s and '80s featured Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake on alto and soprano saxophones, David Murray on tenor and Hamiet Bluiett on baritone. Their iconic sound is evident whenever they play intense, four-part harmonies, achieving their famed buzz" tone. ...
read moreSun Ra Arkestra Directed By Marshall Allen: Marshall's Groove
by Ian Patterson
To celebrate the great Marshall Allen's 100th birthday, what better way than to immerse oneself in the all-enveloping, swinging, soaring, saxophone-singing, ensemble- roaring wonder that is Marshall's Groove." After sixty-seven years in the Sun Ra Arkestra, and nearly thirty steering the ship since taking over the leadership role from John Gilmore, this occasion is not just a celebration of Allen's landmark birthday, but of his truly enormous contribution to the music. Happy birthday maestro! ...
read moreSäje: I Can't Help It
by Scott Lichtman
It is rare to encounter, an all-female, professional jazz vocal ensemble. The quartet säje (pronounced like beige") not only has established itself in this genre with a Grammy nomination, but they raise the bar for all vocal groups. The singers--Sara Gazarek, Amanda Taylor, Erin Bentlage and Johnaye Kendrick--are practically telepathic in synchronizing their phrasing. Any big band would be ecstatic to inject fluid horn hits the way these ladies do. In addition, they transform a potential limitation of female quartets--modest ...
read moreNicola Caminiti: Adam Arturo
by John Chacona
Every generation or so, a rhythm section comes along and changes the game. Think of Count Basie's All-American Rhythm Section" with Freddie Green, Walter Page and Jo Jones, or Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams from Miles Davis' second great quintet. It's up to history to render the verdict about pianist Lex Korten, bassist Ben Tiberio and drummer Miguel Russell. Still, given the fire, precision and reflexes they flash behind saxophonist Nicola Caminiti (no slouch himself) on Vivid Tales ...
read moreRoxana Amed: A Prayer
by John Chacona
The U.S. recording career of Argentine-born vocalist Roxana Amed is a study in the frustration that assumptions about genre can create. Both 2021's Ontology and the following year's Unánime, released by Sony Music, were nominated for Latin Grammy Awards. That was well-deserved, yet these were also among the best jazz vocal recordings of those years. Her 2023 Sony Music release Los Trabajos Y Las Noches, to texts by Argentinean poet Alejandra Pizarnik, is backed by a trio of Frank Carlberg ...
read more
Giveaway
Days remaining: 18
