I had love and specific passion this year. I felt more detached, as many of my dispatches have noted over the last year but particularly in this week of assessment. I felt a listlessness about even completing this list, yet the need to communicate was still there. The need for completeness (in a task that can never be completed) still gnaws at me. I still had to express my … [Read more...]
Gregoire Maret – ‘Wanted’
Taking the lead on harmonica is tricky. The instrument is prone to a chirpiness that doesn't typically sustain for a whole album. However in the right hands (and with the right lungs), it can be more than a special featured player. Grégoire Maret has often been that special featured player in assorted works, but here on his latest album on Sunnyside, Wanted, his second in front … [Read more...]
Kevin Hays – ‘New Day’
Kevin Hays' excellent new release New Day finds the pianist in a very melodic zone, surrounded by musicians from a singer-songwriter tradition while keeping his jazz bona fides very much intact. Hays is joined by Rob Jost and Greg Joseph on bass and drums on all of the songs here. Gregoire Maret adds his harmonica and Tony Scherr adds his guitar to quite a few of the tunes as … [Read more...]