There's a fullness in ten years. A lot of work, if rather relentlessly done, can really make a discernible impact. Ten years ago, folks were making all the talk as rather cyclically that jazz was dead. It was such an exhausting conversation. Folks were around making this music, obviously. It couldn't be that dead. The problem was in the awareness and the tweaking of the … [Read more...]
Nextbop’s Favorite Jazz Albums of 2015
I'm not quite sure what more I could say here about jazz in 2015. There may not have been some overarching narrative that guided how art was made and released. Some folks who have worked together for years finally released an album that said so. Some folks released large ensemble albums that made huge splashes, as sprawling debuts, par for the course, or as the muscular … [Read more...]
Anthony Dean-Harris’ Favorite Jazz Albums of 2015
I've been thinking more and more about rotation lately, about the boundary that music must get through in order to find its way into my phone where I listen to everything primarily, the phone an extension of myself like these devices are for us all for better and for worse. I eschew the predatory Spotify and rather connect myself to the artist savvy enough to digitize himself … [Read more...]
ACT – ‘ACT II’
ACT is Ben Wendel on sax (plus bassoon and melodica), Harish Raghavan on bass, and Nate Wood on drums. Their sophomore album, ACT II, consists of five originals from Raghavan and three from Wendel, and is a fantastic listen with strong melodies from Wendel and a rock-solid backbone from Raghavan and Wood. Out of the gate, the album opens with "Unforeseeable", a tune from … [Read more...]
Romain Collin Set to Release ‘Press Enter’ (EPK)
Nextbop has been a very exciting adventure indeed. We set out a little over five years ago to create a website for people to discover, or in some cases rediscover, current jazz music. We put up artist profiles with a few musicians we liked at the time in order to garner them a little attention. Today these artists are truly gaining real recognition. Tigran Hamasyan went from … [Read more...]