Music and Recording Reviews

Kenny Dorham: Blue Bossa in the Bronx: Live from the Blue Morocco
Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Sonny Red, alto saxophone; Cedar Walton, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Denis Charles, drums
Resonance HCD 2072 (CD; also available as 2 LPs). 1967/2025. Zev Feldman, Bernard Drayton, Charley Drayton, prods.; Bernard Drayton, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****

Freddie Hubbard: On Fire: Live from the Blue Morocco
Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Bennie Maupin, tenor saxophone; Kenny Barron, piano; Herbie Lewis, bass; Freddie Waits, drums
Resonance HCD 2073 (2 CDs; also available as 3 LPs). Same production as above.
Performance ****½
Sonics ***½

Two of the foremost hard-bop trumpeters, Kenny Dorham and Freddie Hubbard, are featured on a pair of previously unreleased live performances from 1967, both recorded at the same long-gone Bronx nightclub by eminent African American adman-cum-engineer Bernard Drayton. Owned by singer/producer Sylvia Robinson—half the rhythm-and-blues duo Mickey & Sylvia and later founder of rap label Sugar Hill—the Blue Morocco hosted Monday-night sessions for radio broadcast, which Drayton taped. Rougher-edged than studio dates, these recordings convincingly capture the immediacy of the live shows, each played with compelling verve by a jazz legend at the peak of his prowess and a stellar quintet.

Famously underrated yet widely admired and influential, Dorham was a first-generation bebopper who came up in the bands of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Sonny Rollins, among others. As a sideman on tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson's first album as leader, Dorham recorded what became his best-known composition, "Blue Bossa," which opens this album. Dorham plays a bravura solo, applying his distinctively bright, smooth, buttery tone to a hard bop take. Unsung alto saxophonist Sonny Red follows playing slithery, bluesy bop lines with impressive flair before pianist Cedar Walton breaks into a radiantly rhythmic solo after ironically quoting Dave Brubeck's "Take Five."

Dorham and Red display their virtuosity in a conventional bebop vein on Charlie Parker's "Confirmation," with Walton taking a more innovative tack and bassist Paul Chambers stretching out on a bowed solo. Two soulful ballads ensue, with Red playing Eubie Blake's "Memories of You" then sitting out as Dorham plays "My One and Only Love." Next come two extended blues: Milt Jackson's "Bags' Groove," where Red takes the first solo in squalling post-bop style, and Dorham's straight-ahead "Blue Friday," featuring a brief, swaggering solo by the leader before the sidemen solo. The set closes with Miles Davis's patented closer "The Theme," featuring a snappy solo by drummer Denis Charles.

Nearly 15 years younger than Dorham, Hubbard adds free-jazz elements to the hard-bop base. His tone is bolder than Dorham's, and his attitude is more assertive, reinforced by the aggressive drumming of Freddie Waits, who splashes and bashes his way through the opening "Crisis." Hubbard flutters and squeals with dazzling technique while Bennie Maupin, on tenor saxophone rather than bass clarinet, stays in a mainstream hard-bop groove, as does pianist Kenny Barron. Hubbard plays songfully through a mute on "Up Jumped Spring," a lilting tune he composed as a Jazz Messenger. Bassist Herbie Lewis is spotlighted on "Echoes of Blue"; Hubbard plays a growling, blustering solo. The musicians stretch into free-jazz territory on "True Colors/Breaking Point," a fusion of two of Hubbard's more abstract works.

In his lengthy take on "Bye Bye Blackbird," Hubbard bawls, bops, wah-wahs, screeches, and quivers over Waits's thrashing drums. Maupin works up a head of steam after a subdued start. Barron takes an airier, more easygoing stance before Waits trades eights with the horns. The band plays "Summertime" loosely, in 6/8 time. Hubbard builds an elegant solo over vamping bass and piano. Maupin waxes Coltrane-esque over Waits's almost too-busy drums. The session ends with "Breaking Point," where Maupin's Rollins-like solo precedes Hubbard's high-spirited romp.

The audio on both albums is uneven, the volume of each musician varying from track to track, especially on Hubbard's set, where the trumpet occasionally sounds distant and the drums sometimes overwhelm. Announcements, audience reactions, and musicians' midsolo mutterings contribute to the live ambience. The recording is of high quality, and the music is invigorating, with the fresh spirit that contemporary players often vainly try to emulate. The you-are-there atmosphere only enhances the uplifting effect.—Larry Birnbaum

Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner: The Music of Anthony Braxton
Lehman, alto saxophone; Mark Turner, tenor saxophone; Matt Brewer, bass; Damion Reid, drums
Pi PI106 (CD; available as LP). 2025. Lehman, prod.; Bryce Gonzales, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****

For serious jazz fans, Anthony Braxton is like Everest: He is there. He is too imposing to be ignored and too intimidating to be embraced.

Recordings of Braxton music by musicians other than Braxton are uncommon but not unknown. This latest comes from four of the most respected figures in current jazz. The leader, Steve Lehman, played with Braxton from 1999 to 2007. The rhythm section from Lehman's longstanding trio, Matt Brewer and Damion Reid, and guest Mark Turner are, in Lehman's words, "musicians outside of Braxton's orbit" who Lehman hopes will "bring new perspectives to the music."

They bring even more. Turner injects his angular, distinctive tenor saxophone language into a Braxton environment—where, in relative terms, he becomes the voice of reason. But "Braxton's orbit" also inspires some of the most electrifying playing of his career. Brewer and Reid take Braxton's complicated music and make it swing—hard. Lehman, meanwhile, is a monster. He nails the blindingly fast, crazily careening head of "34A", then, in his solo, somehow speeds it up. His enunciation on alto saxophone is clean, with a lethal knife edge.

The Braxton compositions are all from the 1970s and 1980s. They're frantic little numbers that sound intellectual, austere, and manic all at once. A piece like "23B + 23G" is impossible to play. These guys play it. Not only that, their enthusiasm reveals an often overlooked quality of Braxton music: joy.

The most surprising entry is Monk's "Trinkle Tinkle." Lehman and Turner tack on a wild two-minute free contrapuntal prologue, then plunge into an uproarious rendering of Monk's famous melody. Another quality that Monk, Braxton, and this quartet all share is dry wit.—Thomas Conrad

Adrian Galante: Introducing Adrian Galante
Galante, clarinet, piano, celeste, Fender Rhodes, synthesizer; Tamir Hendelman, piano; Larry Koonse, guitar; Alex Frank, bass; Joe LaBarbera, drums
Zoho ZM202502 (CD). 2025. Galante, Joachim Becker, prods.; Steve Genewick, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****

This debut is a delightful surprise out of the blue—or rather, out of Perth, Australia. New clarinet players don't pop up that often, especially virtuosos. Adrian Galante, now 28, took up the instrument at 7 and began playing professional jazz gigs at 15. He moved to New York in 2022, but his debut album is a Los Angeles project, recorded at United with an elite L.A. band: pianist Tamir Hendelman, guitarist Larry Koonse, bassist Alex Frank, and drummer Joe LaBarbera.

The appeal of Galante begins with the seductive allure of his sound. Its purity is spiritual. Its sensuality is physical. He makes you realize, as if for the first time, what a beautiful instrument the clarinet is. He excels at all three of its registers: the rich, warm bottom below middle C; the clarion middle; and the penetrating top treble.

Of all the things he does well, what he does best is slower material. The album opens with a deep, contemplative, searching encounter: "It Amazes Me." And it does. Romanticism is not sentimental when it is this competent.

But Galante can also take off and fly, like on "You're All the World to Me." He's said that his principal role models are not other clarinet players but great singers. He internalizes the lyrics to the songs he plays, and his attention to narrative shapes every phrase and dynamic choice. Hendelman, long known as a singular accompanist for vocalists, is by his side with complementary grace.

The highlight is "The Folks Who Live on the Hill." Galante and Hendelman, alone together for seven rapt minutes, linger over the tune's hopeful, yearning emotion. If you remain unmoved, you have a heart of stone.—Thomas Conrad

Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith: Defiant Life
Vijay Iyer, piano, Fender Rhodes, electronics; Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet
ECM 2840 (CD; reviewed as 24/96). 2025. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Stefano Amerio, eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½

It is tempting to call this a jazz record. Two legends, piano and trumpet, but Defiant Life resists classification. This six-track suite is best considered art music, unbound by genre, rooted in history, and shaped by shared commitments to freedom, mourning, and hope. "Our time together, from the moment we meet right until the moment we play, is most often spent talking about the state of the world, studying histories of liberation, and sharing readings and historical references, as a means of grounding ourselves purposefully in our present," Iyer writes in the liner notes. Those discussions led Smith to dedicate his "Floating River Requiem" to assassinated Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba and Iyer to compose "Kite" in memory of the recently slain (in 2023) Palestinian writer and poet Refaat Alareer. These are the only two fully notated tracks on the recording; everything else developed semispontaneously out of shared understanding and empathy. The result sounds both ancient and immediate, shaped by history but unfolding in the moment.

The suite's opening, "Prelude: Survival," seems to rise from the primordial mists, or perhaps the smoking rubble. Smith's trumpet enters softly and distantly, disembodied, as Iyer's piano rumbles low and occasionally chimes above. The effect is stark and unsettled. As the piece builds, Smith wails and mutters through the horn, daring it to speak. Iyer answers with flickering harmonies that search for shape in the rubble. It's an extraordinary journey, grounded yet otherworldly. The final movement mixes sounds of conflict with high-pitched radiance.

It has its toe-tapping moments, but Defiant Life will push you toward reflection—on meaning, resilience, and the vital necessity of creative defiance.—Jason Victor Serinus

Simón Willson: Bet
Willson, bass; Neta Raanan, tenor saxophone; Evan Main, piano; Kayvon Gordon, drums
Endectomorph EMM-026 (CD). 2025. Willson, prod.; Jimmy Katz, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½

Two of the most noteworthy debuts of the last few years were Simón Willson's Good Company in 2023 and Neta Ranaan's Unforeseen Blossom in 2024. Now Willson has a second record and Ranaan is on it.

Willson and Raanan are part of a loose pack of young, cutting-edge New York–based players who gig together and appear on each other's records. They're stimulating because they push the jazz envelope. They're accessible because they work within the broad outlines of the great jazz tradition.

In New York, a new tenor saxophone badass hits town about every month, but Ranaan stands out. She is a natural improviser. It feels as if she throws a switch and interesting ideas just flow. She doesn't sound like other new tenors. She's smoother, more measured, and more economical. She gets in and out and keeps you wanting more.

The leader, Willson, is a wicked soloist (for example, on "Business Card" and "Get a Room"), but his primary role is instigator and auteur. His bass is the engine that powers this high-speed ensemble. He says he called his album Bet because he regards improvisation as a risky business, like gambling. The player here who constantly rolls the dice and risks the most is Evan Main, a new name. He is an eruptive pianist. As his solos drive forward, notes spill out the sides.

On his two albums to date, Willson has recorded 17 tracks, all solid originals. It would be fascinating to hear the assembled strong voices of a Willson ensemble set loose on a known song.

The lucid live sound is by Jimmy Katz, the famous jazz photographer. He may soon become known as the great recording engineer who moonlights as a photographer.—Thomas Conrad