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Sweetbeats Productions, Digital download available at Apple Music and Google Music $8.99 I know I've raved about recordings in reviews, even in the last year, where I remarked that I put it in my CD player or an LP on my turntable and I didn't take it out/off for a very long time. That's a... Read More »

ORGM-1030, LP $24, available at https://orgmusic.merchnow.com/products/v2/276626/softly-black-vinyl This one threw me for a loop, as my mom likes to say when she's thrown for a loop. I took one look at the cover and thought, "Oh, here's another wonderful ORG reissue from the Golden Age of Jazz." I know of Shirley Horn, but I'm not that... Read More »

ORG Music, ORGM 1040, LP $27.99, available everywhere For a guy who has owned umpteen copies of Time Out over the years, everything from an early pressing to one of those JVC Super Bit-Mapped CDs to the latest LP remastering from Analogue Productions, my record collection is suspiciously devoid of Dave Brubeck records. Other than... Read More »

Sunny War, With the Sun. ORG Music ORGM-1041, LP $15.89 at Amazon.com. I have this really bad habit of judging albums by their covers. Something gets sent to me in the mail, I glance at it, maybe open it up and look at the liner notes and then I place it in the rotation according to what... Read More »

Sarah Reich, New Change. Tap Music Productions B07FTXR22W, CD $9.49 from Amazon.com "I want to be the first tap dancer to win a Grammy Award!" Okay yeah, it's nice to have dreams, kid—wait a minute, did you say tap dancing? A Grammy Award? When you think of tap dancing as an art form, do you think about... Read More »

Marc Phillips has been doing music reviews for Positive Feedback for quite a while now. In the interest of full disclosure, he is also a distributor (Colleen Cardas Imports), and has a separate life selling fine audio gear. You'll want to keep this in mind as you read his comments...but his evaluation dovetails exactly with my... Read More »

Light in the Attic Records LITA169, colored LP $22, LP $20, CD $12, available at lightintheattic.net "Lee Hazlewood wasn't a cowboy, but he sure played the part. He never took LSD but made some far-out, psychedelic records, and he sure as shit didn't surf…but he had a brief yet prolific output of surf music. The... Read More »

Arbors Records ARCD 19463, CD $10, available at https://arborsrecords.com/collections/frontpage/products/tom-hook-62 "Where were you in '62?" The number 62 always gets my attention. That's because I was born in 1962, and any mention of that year and the events that occurred instantly gets embedded in my memory, everything from Marilyn Monroe's death the day before I was... Read More »

ORG Records ORGM-2114, LP $20, special limited edition green or white $25, available at orgmusic.com We music lovers and collectors know the feeling of missing out on a particular band or performer for a big chunk of our lives, only to say, "Why haven't I discovered this until now?" I can think of dozens of... Read More »

Andy Zimmerman, Half Light. Newvelle Records NV014LP, LP available as part of subscription at newvelle-records.com I came to a stunning realization about my musical tastes the other day. I was discussing Haydn with a friend, and he asked why I wasn't a bigger fan of his music. I hemmed and hawed for a while before coming... Read More »

Palmetto PM2192, CD $15.98 Amazon.com Fred Hersch, where have you been? It's been ages! Okay, I know I'm the one who's been out of touch with Fred Hersch and his amazing piano trio recordings. It's not his fault. It's a curious thing, one of those instances where you discover a new artist and buy an... Read More »

Self-released and available at b3jazz.com; CD $12.97, digital download $9.99 "My name is Kevin Gerzevitz and I play the Hammond Organ. I've learned through my fellow organist Robert Kennedy that you write reviews of jazz recordings. I am a member of a group called B3B4. We are based in the San Francisco Bay Area and... Read More »

Gabriel Mervine's People, Places, and Things. Synergy Records SMCD 80040-2, 80043-2 and 80044-2, CD $12.98 each at Amazon.com Before I can introduce you to Gabriel Mervine, an incredible and ambitious jazz trumpet/flugelhorn player and composer, I have to introduce you to Uncle Don. He's not my uncle, by the way. Don Marsh is Colleen's uncle,... Read More »

I'll start off by describing my experience with reel-to-reel, which spans several decades. In 1979, I acquired a Pioneer RTR deck from my brother-in-law—he had no idea how to use it, and I believe we just traded some stuff back and forth. It worked almost flawlessly, although one of the channels had a habit of... Read More »

Noa Fort, No World Between Us. Self-released, CD $15, available at https://noafort.bandcamp.com/album/no-world-between-us I've been really hard on contemporary jazz singers lately. Most of them are extremely talented, but I always feel like I need a little more from them. If they're going to raid the Great American Songbook, they should come up with a unique approach that... Read More »

Takaaki, New Kid in Town. Albany Records B076F3X5GJ, CD $16.99 amazon.com If you're an audiophile, you're probably already familiar with the 70s jazz recordings from Japan's Three Blind Mice label. I'm lucky enough to own several of these titles on LP—everything from Tsuyoshi Yamamoto's legendary Midnight Sugar and Misty to Isao Suzuki's Blue City to Hideto Kanai's Q... Read More »

Denny Zeitlin & George Marsh's Expedition. (Sunnyside Communication SSC1487. CD $12.98. http://sunnysidezone.com/album/expedition) The first time I listened to Expedition from pianist Denny Zeitlin and percussionist George Marsh, I didn't think of it as a collection of improvisations between two longtime collaborators. I imagined a more traditional jazz ensemble, one with a traditional rhythm section, even though their... Read More »

Dave Stryker's Strykin' Ahead on CD and LP. (Strikezone 8815, CD $15, LP $25 www.davestryker.com) The other night, while driving home one evening between Syracuse and Rochester, I happened upon a program called Cool Jazz Countdown on the local NPR station. The format of the show was clearly modeled on Casey Kasem's original Top 40 Countdown—if Casey... Read More »

Denny Zeitlin & George Marsh's Expedition. (Sunnyside Communication SSC1487, CD $12.98, http://sunnysidezone.com/album/expedition) The first time I listened to Expedition from pianist Denny Zeitlin and percussionist George Marsh, I didn't think of it as a collection of improvisations between two longtime collaborators. I imagined a more traditional jazz ensemble, one with a traditional rhythm section, even though... Read More »