Fred Kaplan

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Fred Kaplan

Steve Coleman, Morphogenesis

Fred Kaplan First Published: Jul 14, 2017
Steve Coleman, 61, is one of the most creative alto saxophonists, conceptualists, composers, and bandleaders—and certainly the most influential of all those identities—in jazz today. His latest album, Morphogenesis (on the Pi Recordings label), doesn't quite equal his last two—his breakthrough, Functional Arrhythmia (2013), or his masterpiece, Synovial Joints (2015)—but it's a rouser by any measure: on close listening, a heady sweat-drencher.
Fred Kaplan

Geri Allen, R.I.P.

Fred Kaplan First Published: Jun 28, 2017
Geri Allen, one of the great jazz pianists, died on Tuesday, of cancer, at the terribly young age of 60. She made wondrous, rousing, deeply felt music from all eras and styles, with collaborators of all stripes or solo. She could be raucous or elegant, bluesy or lyrical, sometimes all four at once.
Fred Kaplan

Masterpieces by Ellington at 45rpm

Fred Kaplan First Published: Jun 17, 2017
In 2014, Chad Kassem, proprietor of Acoustic Sounds and Analogue Productions, released a 200-gram QRP vinyl pressing of Masterpieces by Ellington, one of the Duke's least-known but possibly finest and finest-sounding albums, to wild acclaim and (by audiophile standards) brisk sales. Now he's put it out at 45rpm, and while the 33 was a startler, the new version—spread out on two LPs, to accommodate the wider grooves—will leave you breathless.
Fred Kaplan

David Murray Is Back in Town

Fred Kaplan First Published: May 04, 2017
When David Murray decamped to Paris 20 years ago, the New York jazz scene lost its most distinctive voice: a tenor saxophonist who fused the hefty romance of Ben Webster, the improvisational zest of Sonny Rollins, and the avant skybursts of Albert Ayler. Now he's back, living in Harlem, playing at Manhattan's Village Vanguard (this week, through Sunday) with new and old bandmates, and sounding as lush, adventurous, and shiversome as ever.
Fred Kaplan

John Lewis, The Wonderful World of Jazz

Fred Kaplan First Published: Apr 17, 2017
The pianist John Lewis, who died in 2001 at the age of 79, is best known as the leader of the Modern Jazz Quartet, but throughout that group's long life (1952–1992), he also composed, conducted, and played music for many other ensembles, large and small, tinged with influences from swing and the blues to Baroque, Renaissance, and Third Stream avant-garde. The Wonderful World of Jazz, recorded in 1960 on the Atlantic label, is one of his more obscure albums, but it's also one of his freshest.

I'd never heard it, until I received this new 180gm stereo LP, reissued by Pure Pleasure Recordings...

Fred Kaplan

Taj Mahal, Labor of Love

Fred Kaplan First Published: Mar 06, 2017
Labor of Love is one of the most pleasurable albums you're likely to hear all year—and it sounds amazing, too...what we have here is magic: classic blues tunes—"Stagger Lee," "My Creole Bell," Mistreated Blues," "Zanzibar," "John Henry," and more—treated with such love and wit and heartache and (to use a tired term that's appropriate here) authenticity.
Fred Kaplan

Kenny Dorham: Quiet Kenny

Fred Kaplan First Published: Feb 08, 2017
The critic Gary Giddins once wrote that Kenny Dorham is "practically synonymous with underrated," so don't feel ashamed if you've never heard of this golden-toned trumpeter, who came up in the 1940s alongside the bebop giants, toiling for a decade as a sideman. Quiet Kenny, a 1960 album on the New Jazz label, is the only Dorham album that features no other horn player. It's just his quartet, and what a quartet—Dorham is accompanied by Tommy Flanagan on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Art Taylor on drums.
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