Fred Kaplan

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Joni & Herbie & Wayne (& Dave)
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Oct 15, 2007  |  1 comments
I’ve listened to Herbie Hancock’s new CD, River: The Joni Letters (on Verve), three times now, and it gets better with each spin. This is a Joni Mitchell tribute album, with Hancock on acoustic piano heading a straight-ahead jazz quintet (including Wayne Shorter on soprano sax and Dave Holland on bass), fronted on six of the 10 tracks by various singers.
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Jose James, Yesterday I Had the Blues
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Mar 31, 2015  |  18 comments
I'm usually not a fan of male baritone jazz singers, not even Johnny Hartman (except, of course, on his album with Coltrane): they tend too much toward the operatic, and they're usually too smooth, too eyebrow-arched suave, for my taste anyway. But Jose James is something else, and his new album, Yesterday I Had the Blues (Blue Note), goes down like a rare vintage port on a chilly night.
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June 2021 Jazz Record Reviews
Music and Recording Reviews
Thomas Conrad, Fred Kaplan  |  Jun 04, 2021  |  0 comments
Mario Rom's Interzone: Eternal Fiction, Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas' Soundprints: Other Worlds, Jack Brandfield: I'll Never Be the Same and Charles Lloyd & The Marvels: Tone Poem.
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Just Another Night in New York City
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Oct 02, 2015  |  1 comments
Thursday night, I took the F train to Manhattan's Blue Note, the 8pm set, to see Trio 3—the longstanding improv band, consisting of Oliver Lake on alto sax, Reggie Workman on bass, and Andrew Cyrille on drums—joined by Jason Moran on piano . . . Moran, the most inventive pianist on the scene today, can play anything with anybody.
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Just another week in New York City
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  May 06, 2009  |  2 comments
There’s been much hand-wringing among the aficionadi over reports that George Wein may call off his JVC Jazz Festival this year, leaving New York City bereft of such an event for the first time in decades. I’m not so bothered.
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Keith Jarrett & Charlie Haden duets
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  May 31, 2010  |  1 comments
Let’s put the main point up front. The new duet album by Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden, Jasmine (on ECM), is a gorgeous piece of work: all standards, mainly ballads, nothing fancy (not overtly anyway), but such poignance and quiet passion; it’s a glimpse into the intimacy of the act of making art.
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Keith Jarrett & Charlie Haden: Last Dance
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Jun 19, 2014  |  8 comments
Almost exactly four years ago, I posted a Blog that began like this: "Let's put the main point up front. The new duet album by Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden, Jasmine (on ECM), is a gorgeous piece of work: all standards, mainly ballads, nothing fancy (not overtly anyway), but such poignancy and quiet passion; it's a glimpse into the intimacy of the act of making art." A follow-up CD is out now, Last Dance...
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Keith Jarrett Trio at Carnegie Hall (plus: Jazz Festival!)
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Jun 19, 2010  |  5 comments
Keith Jarrett’s “Standards Trio” played Carnegie Hall Thursday night, to predictable glories.
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Keith Jarrett's Awesome Night at Carnegie
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Jun 21, 2007  |  First Published: Jun 22, 2007  |  2 comments
If Keith Jarrett weren’t such a magnificent pianist, it would be intolerable to watch him in concert. His screechy humming and moaning, his lizard leering and preening—in three decades of seeing him play, I’ve never managed, despite some effort, to find the charm in his theatrics. And yet, he usually has me from his first chord—so warm, rich, and intriguingly edgy—especially the past few years, as he’s tightened his rhapsodic tendencies while enriching his lyrical core.
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Keith Jarrett's Awesome Night at Carnegie Hall
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan  |  Jan 30, 2009  |  13 comments
I went to see Keith Jarrett play solo at Carnegie Hall last night. This may puzzle careful readers of this blog, who no doubt recall my boycott of Jarrett in August 2007 after his disgraceful behavior at the Umbria Jazz Festival, on top of a career of disgraceful behavior. Well, I decided to call an end my own pique. First, I’m told that Jarrett apologized to the people of Umbria. Second, now that Barack Obama is president, the tantrums of a piano player are more likely to be seen as a mere random annoyance than “yet another example” of American brutishness. Finally, I figured, it’s a new era, I’ll give the guy another chance. He’s too good an artist—too great, really—to ignore just because he’s a jerk. (Jackson Pollock was much more unpleasant, yet that doesn’t stop me from gazing at Number One (1950) every time I visit the Museum of Modern Art.)
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