September 2011, Vol. 27, No. 09

Robin Holcomb & Talking Pictures
The Point of It All
Songlines

Robin Holcomb has never been one to toe the lines of genre or, for that matter, expectation. Her art is singular: Who else creates music and lyrics that resonate deeply with the nation’s pre-industrial past, incorporate slanted jazz, and vividly evoke her own present moment? (full review)

August 2011, Vol. 27, No. 8
KPLU School of Jazz
Lessons from Listening to the KPLU School of Jazz

Inside Avast! Recording Studio A, a rectangular room with dark wood rafters, curtained walls, and a concrete floor covered with rugs, a high school jazz band director stands on a podium to the left. Student trombone and trumpet players sit in two parallel rows of chairs to the right, separated by low walls of sound absorbing material. The saxophonists sit in a row of chairs straight ahead. Through a glass sliding door in the corner is the lone drummer....
(full review)

March 2011, Vol. 27, No. 3
Reptet
At the Cabin
Artist Recording Collective

Reptet is less a jazz outfit than just what they are: skilled musicians with primarily Northwest-reared chops shaped over nearly a decade together. Reptet’s fourth release, At the Cabin, is out on the Artist Recording Collective label, a platform for member-based record promotion out of Kansas City. The release shows a hodgepodge of skills and styles...
(full review)

February 2011, Vol. 27, No. 2
Dave Anderson Quartet
Clarity
Pony Boy Records

Clarity is an elastic studio debut from alto and soprano sax man Dave Anderson. Released in the fall of 2010 on Pony Boy Records, the recording exhibits “a very accessible flow. Perfect for jazz radio play,” the label’s press material notes. From Anderson’s tasteful soprano re-working of Joe Henderson’s “Y Ya la Quiero” to eight Anderson originals and the standard “Beautiful Love,” the tracks on Clarity deliver a brand of ...
(full review)

January 2011, Vol. 27, No. 1
Thomas Marriott
Constraints & Liberations
Origin 82577

Released in November, Constraints & Liberations is trumpeter and flugelhornist Thomas Marriott’s second release of 2010, and it is his most satisfying disc to date. Marriott leads his quintet of saxophonist Hans Teuber, bassist Jeff Johnson, percussionist John Bishop, and pianist Gary Versace through seven original compositions, including Jeff Johnson’s “Clues.”...
(full review)