Thomas Conrad

The jazz world is accustomed to losing its greats too soon. Charlie Parker was gone at 34. John Coltrane at 40. Clifford Brown at 25. Rollins was, wonderfully, not one of them. He lived to 95.

Richard Andersson: Monk & More; Mal Waldron: Starlight & Sunlight: At the Jazz Showcase; Ben Stapp: Uzmic Ro'Samg (Live Solo Tuba); Dave Adewumi: The Flame Beneath the Silence.

The Penthouse jazz club was on First and Cherry in Seattle. It had a seven-year run from 1962 to 1968 as one of the premier jazz venues on the West Coast. The site is a parking lot now. Yet the Penthouse lives. This is the story of why.

Michel Petrucciani: Kuumbwa; Tyrone Allen: Upward; Marilyn Crispell/Anders Jormin: Memento; Steve White Trio: Soul Drums; Gregory Hutchinson: Kind of Now: The Pulse of Miles Davis.

Gabrielle Cavassa: Diavola; Miroslav Vitous: Mountain Call; Pepper Adams Quintet; Cecil Taylor Unit: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts; Javon Jackson: Jackson Plays Dylan.

Out Of/Into: Motion II; Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Strasbourg 82; Bijan Taghavi: Cactus Sessions.

ill Ware and The Club Bird All Stars: Martian Sunset; JD Allen: Love Letters (The Ballad Sessions); Pat Bianchi: Confluence; Melissa Errico: I Can Dream, Can't I? (Illusions and Conversations from the Great American Songbook); Joel Ross: Gospel Music.

John Vanore & Abstract Truth: Easter Island Suite
Vanore, trumpet, flugelhorn, compositions, arrangements; 27 others
Acoustical Concepts AC-160 (CD). 1989, 2012, 2024/2026. Vanore, prod.; Terry Hoffman, Richard King, John Senior, engs.

Billy Hart: Multidirectional; John O'Gallagher: Ancestral; Thomas Strønen's Time Is A Blind Guide: Off Stillness; Peter McEachern Quintet: Streamin'.

In the April 2024 issue of this magazine, a piece by Editor Jim Austin appeared in the "As We See It" space. It was titled "On assessing sonic illusions," and it has haunted me for more than a year. Jim's thesis was that a music recording is a "synthetic, whole-cloth creation ... a complete fabrication."