Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Vocalist Andy Bey Dies at 85
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Ambrose Akinmusire and Kris Davis perform in New York at Vision Festival, which ran May 23-28. Akinmusire’s Origami Harvest earned one of the few 5-star reviews in DownBeat during 2018.
(Photo: Eva Kapanadaze)
Stacey Kent issued I Know I Dream: The Orchestral Sessions on OKeh.
(Photo: Diane Sagnier)The list below is a round-up of the 5-star, 4.5-star and 4-star reviews that ran in print editions of DownBeat during 2018. If a performer was the focus of a feature story, it’s likely their album wasn’t reviewed, and accounts for its omission from the list below. Peruse at your leisure—and enjoy. DB
Ambrose Akinmusire, Origami Harvest (Blue Note)
When Akinmusire toured the Origami Harvest project prior to recording, the music was touted as a “jazz/rap/classical mash-up,” in part to explain the presence of rapper Kool A.D. and the Mivos String Quartet. But the music itself doesn’t really stitch jazz, rap and classical together. Instead, it repurposes elements of each to create something strikingly unique.
Kenny Barron Quintet, Concentric Circles (Blue Note)
At age 75, pianist Barron embodies the convergence of modern, progressive jazz and classic post-bop traditions. There’s nothing old-fashioned about the 11 tracks on Concentric Circles, his 47th album as a leader, featuring eight original compositions and four younger colleagues. Barron employs tunefulness, fine touch and implacable swing with ease and variety, drawing from decades of experience as an in-demand accompanist and bandleader. Yes, he could be showier, but this project is absolutely perfect as is, delighting the ear with delicate flourishes and turns.
Stacey Kent, I Know I Dream: The Orchestral Sessions (OKeh)
Kent’s mezzo-soprano voice is a beautiful instrument for offsetting orchestral accompaniment, a fact that I Know I Dream: The Orchestral Sessions illustrates well. The orchestra, a 52-piece London studio assemblage, has a lushness that would smother Nelson Riddle—yet the vocalist cuts through it effortlessly. In fairness, the arrangements hardly can compete with Kent’s presence. But the singer has a relatively soft, restrained voice that on a less-skilled performer might easily be overpowered. Kent is incisive, even at a near-whisper, as on the tender arrangement of “Photograph,” a mesmerizing bossa nova by Antonio Carlos Jobim.
Wojtek Mazolewski, Polka (Worldwide Deluxe Edition) (Whirlwind)
Mazolewski, leader of the Polish experimental jazz quartet Pink Freud, offers up a bundled version of some of his previous works with Polka (Worldwide Deluxe Edition). The bassist and composer swaps three tunes from his critically acclaimed 2014 album Polka (Agora S.A.) for the title cuts from his 2017 12-inch “London/Theme De YoYo” (Lanquidity). This rejiggering of past releases results in a musical travelogue that tracks the bandleader’s wanderlust and musical prowess.
Steve Tibbetts, Life Of (ECM)
Because there’s so much atmosphere in Tibbetts’ music—the reverb-laden guitar, ghostly piano chords, quiet washes of percussion—it can be easy to assume that atmosphere is all he’s got. After all, the guitarist is not one for big, brash statements or deeply funky grooves, nor do his tunes offer anything like the easily decoded structure of pop songcraft. And when the narrative is hard to follow, it’s all too tempting to assume there isn’t one at all. With Life Of, Tibbetts makes it easier to follow the thread by presenting a series of sonic portraits, each one offered as a “Life Of.” It’s not storytelling in any conventional sense, but it does lend a certain specificity to the mood and vocabulary of each piece.
Bob Dylan, Trouble No More —The Bootleg Series Vol. 13, 1979-1981 (Columbia/Legacy)
Fred Hersch Trio, Heartsongs (Sunnyside)
Fela Kuti, Underground System (Knitting Factory)
Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson Plays (Verve)
Woody Shaw, Tokyo ’81 (Elemental)
Muddy Waters, The Best Of Muddy Waters (Chess/UMe)
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Foster was truly a drummer to the stars, including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson.
Jun 3, 2025 11:25 AM
Al Foster, a drummer regarded for his fluency across the bebop, post-bop and funk/fusion lineages of jazz, died May 28…
Davis was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes.
Apr 22, 2025 11:50 AM
Francis Davis, an august jazz and cultural critic who won both awards and esteem in print, film and radio, died April…
“Branford’s playing has steadily improved,” says younger brother Wynton Marsalis. “He’s just gotten more and more serious.”
May 20, 2025 11:58 AM
Branford Marsalis was on the road again. Coffee cup in hand, the saxophonist — sporting a gray hoodie and a look of…
“What did I want more of when I was this age?” Sasha Berliner asks when she’s in her teaching mode.
May 13, 2025 12:39 PM
Part of the jazz vibraphone conversation since her late teens, Sasha Berliner has long come across as a fully formed…
