Fred Kaplan

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Matt Wilson's Gathering Call
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Jan 31, 2014  |  0 comments
Drummer-composer Matt Wilson's new album, Gathering Call (on the Palmetto label), is a lot of fun, as several reviews have noted, but don't hold that against him. This is, as the late Lester Bowie called one of his own later albums, "serious fun."
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Mary Halvorson’s Illusionary Sea
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Jan 22, 2014  |  6 comments
I first heard Mary Halvorson about four years ago, when she played with Jason Moran and Ron Miles at the Jazz Standard in New York City. I didn’t fully understand what she was doing (I still don’t), but she seemed to be painting some new colors in jazz, or at least in jazz guitar—the ice-crystal intonation, the off-kilter harmonies, the quasi-chords that seemed to dart nowhere till the neon lit up the path in the night.
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Turkey & Jazz in NYC
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Nov 25, 2013  |  0 comments
Maria Schneider, photographed by Jimmy & Dena Katz

Thanksgiving week is upon us, which means that two of the best bands in jazz are showcased at two of New York’s—and possibly the world’s—best clubs. From Tuesday through Sunday, Maria Schneider’s Jazz Orchestra plays at the Jazz Standard (though not on Thanksgiving Day), while Jason Moran’s Bandwagon Trio plays at the Village Vanguard. These gigs have become annual traditions. They sell out fast. Get your tickets now.

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Solo Piano: Marc Cary and Matthew Shipp
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Nov 01, 2013  |  1 comments
I would never have placed Marc Cary and Matthew Shipp in the same category of jazz pianists, but their superb new solo discs—Cary’s For the Love of Abbey (Motema) and Shipp’s Piano Sutras (Thirsty Ear)—find them converging toward close points from different angles.
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John Zorn@60
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Oct 23, 2013  |  3 comments
It ranks among the most astounding turnarounds in American music. John Zorn—erstwhile bad-boy impresario of the downtown New York jazz scene—spent last month touted as a modern master, and Manhattan's pride, by the city's most venerable institutions of high culture: the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim, Lincoln Center, Columbia University, and NYU.
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Audio Research Reference CD9 CD player/DAC
CD Player/Transport ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
Fred Kaplan  |  Oct 07, 2013  |  9 comments
Now entering its fourth decade, the Compact Disc player seems to have reached a stage of maturity where the best models within a given price range will sound pretty much alike. The technology of the Compact Disc itself is set, its possibilities and limitations are well understood; and the designers of CD players who figure out how to stretch the former and finesse the latter wind up at about the same sonic place (again, for the same price), even if they've taken different routes to get there.
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Darcy James Argue and His Steampunk Big Band
Music and Recording Features
Fred Kaplan  |  Oct 01, 2013  |  1 comments
The world is catching up with Darcy James Argue. Two years ago, he was known mainly for having the strangest name in jazz since Ornette Coleman. Now he's a double winner in Downbeat's 2013 Critics' Poll—the top pick for Best Arranger, and tied with Maria Schneider for Best Big Band Leader.
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Steve Coleman and the Five Elements
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Aug 24, 2013  |  1 comments
Alto saxophonist Steve Coleman's new CD, Functional Arrhythmias (Pi Recordings), is his best in many years.
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That's It!
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Aug 07, 2013  |  2 comments
That's It! (Sony Legacy) is a hell of a fun album: the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, the treasure of New Orleans music, wailing with cylinders wide open.

Purists might protest. All the songs on this record are new (a first for the PHJB), and the solos tend more toward R&B riffs than trad-jazz polyphony. In short, the vibe seems to pulse more from the rowdy late-night clubs up on Frenchman Street than the band's usual stately sanctuary in the heart of the French Quarter.

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Bill Frisell’s Big Sur
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Jul 31, 2013  |  2 comments
Bill Frisell’s new CD, Big Sur (Sony Masterworks/OKeh Records), is at once a reprise and a departure. It features the string musicians from his 858 Quartet, last heard two years ago on Sign of Life—Frisell on guitar, Jenny Scheinman on violin, Eyvind Kang on viola, Hank Roberts, cello—this time augmented by the versatile young drummer Rudy Royston. The album also features 19 new Frisell compositions, lithe and lyrical, yet laced with more complex harmonies—subtler, darker, and more sinuous—than anything I’ve heard from him before. . .
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