Fred Kaplan

September 2022 Jazz Record Reviews
Music and Recording Reviews
Thomas Conrad, Fred Kaplan  |  Sep 09, 2022  |  2 comments
Steve Cardenas/Ben Allison/Ted Nash: Healing Power: The Music of Carla Bley, Matthew Shipp Trio: World Construct and Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Mesmerism.
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Revinylization #33: 21st Century (Steely) Dan
Revinylization
Fred Kaplan  |  Aug 31, 2022  |  7 comments
Steely Dan's last two studio albums, Two Against Nature (2000) and Everything Must Go (2003), are anomalies. The music is stellar, at or near the level of the band's best early work, but it's almost unknown, even among fans. (Back in 2011, one night of a week-long gig at the Beacon in New York City was supposed to highlight songs from these two albums—the program was called "21st-Century Dan"—but the idea was dropped when almost nobody bought advance tickets.)
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Revinylization #30: Coltrane's Giant Steps from the Electric Recording Company
Revinylization
Fred Kaplan  |  Jun 09, 2022  |  3 comments
I have never written about the ultraboutique reissues from the London-based Electric Recording Company. Pressed in quantities of 300 or so, each title sells out within days (or hours) of its release, despite a price tag of $400 or more. Why review what can't be had?
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Revinylization #29: Bill Evans, Inner Spirit: The 1979 Concert at the Teatro General San Martin, Buenos Aires
Revinylization
Fred Kaplan  |  Apr 28, 2022  |  6 comments
Do we need yet another unearthed recording of the Bill Evans trio? I count 22 albums or boxed sets—a total of 49 polycarbonate or vinyl discs—of posthumously released sessions, many of them in just the last few years. But this latest discovery, recorded in Buenos Aires in September 1979, is a stunner. So, to answer the question above: Yes, we do need this recording.
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Revinylization #28: Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard and Crescent, from Impulse! and Acoustic Sounds
Revinylization
Fred Kaplan  |  Mar 31, 2022  |  1 comments
John Coltrane spent his final years with Impulse! Records, from 1961 until his death, in 1967, at the age of 40. Those years were his most adventurous, as he sorted through every sound he could create in his spiritual quest, as he put it, to "get the one essential." His range of recordings in those years spanned from "Greensleeves" to A Love Supreme, from ballads with pop singer Johnny Hartman to multiphonic fireworks with alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy.
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Recording of April 2022: Ghost Song
Recording of the Month
Fred Kaplan  |  Mar 24, 2022  |  5 comments
Cécile Mclorin Salvant: Ghost Song
McLorin Salvant, vocals; Sullivan Fortner, piano, Fender Rhodes; Aaron Diehl, piano, pipe organ; Paul Sikivie, Burniss Travis, bass; Alexa Tarantino, flute; Marvin Sewell, guitar; James Chirillo, banjo; Keita Ogawa, percussion; Kyle Poole, drums; Daniel Swenberg, lute, theorbo; Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
Nonesuch (LP, CD). McLorin Salvant, prod.; Todd Whitelock, Patrick Dillet, Chris Muth, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics *****

Starting with her out-of-nowhere triumph at the 2010 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition and continuing with the release of four albums including three Grammy winners, Cécile McLorin Salvant, still just 32, has been raising eyebrows and neck hairs for a dozen years. She reigns as the supreme jazz singer of our time, ranking among the best of all time. More remarkable, she keeps getting better, and, rarer still, she keeps evolving, expanding her repertoire of styles—which was vast from the start—without losing a wisp of her deep blues, swing, precision, wit, operatic range, or storytelling drama.

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March 2022 Jazz Record Reviews
Music and Recording Reviews
Thomas Conrad, Fred Kaplan  |  Mar 11, 2022  |  2 comments
Isaiah J. Thompson: Composed in Color, Oscar Peterson: A Time for Love: The Oscar Peterson Quartet—Live in Helsinki, 1987, John Zorn: New Masada Quartet and Andrew Cyrille, William Parker, And Enrico Rava: 2 Blues for Cecil.
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Revinylization #27: Round Trip: Ornette Coleman's Blue Note sides on Tone Poet
Revinylization
Fred Kaplan  |  Mar 01, 2022  |  2 comments
Round Trip: Ornette Coleman on Blue Note is the first boxed set on the label's Tone Poet imprint, and it's a bold move. Audiophiles are not known to be keen on avant-garde music, but Don Was, Blue Note's president, and Joe Harley, the Tone Poet producer, are huge Ornette fans. They've lately been reissuing some other adventurous titles from the catalog—so good on them! Fellow fans should dive into this one, and the hesitant should give it a try, with some caveats.
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February 2022 Jazz Record Reviews
Music and Recording Reviews
Thomas Conrad, Fred Kaplan  |  Feb 11, 2022  |  2 comments
Edward Simon: Solo Live, The Wonderful World Of Louis Armstrong All Stars: A Gift to Pops and Fred Hersch: Breath by Breath.
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Revinylization #26: Two Charles Mingus LPs
Revinylization
Fred Kaplan  |  Feb 03, 2022  |  2 comments
In the annals of jazz, Charles Mingus—bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, unique, headstrong, and deeply influential in every category—occupies the transit point between Duke Ellington and the post-'60s avant-garde, a station he carved out deliberately.
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