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	Jazz Genre	Nb. Rated	Avg. rating
1	Fusion	121	3.65
2	Avant-Garde Jazz	74	3.91
3	Post Bop	64	4.05
4	Hard Bop	62	3.81
5	Soul Jazz	50	3.42
6	World Fusion	43	3.60
7	RnB	42	3.61
8	Big Band	42	3.81
9	Eclectic Fusion	41	3.72
10	Jazz Related Rock	33	3.74
11	Progressive Big Band	30	4.02
12	Nu Jazz	30	3.48
13	Funk Jazz	30	3.55
14	Bop	28	4.04
15	Pop/Art Song/Folk	25	2.76
16	Funk	24	3.83
17	Third Stream	24	3.90
18	Jazz Related Electronica/Hip-Hop	19	3.42
19	Exotica	18	3.42
20	Latin Jazz	17	3.74
21	Jazz Related Soundtracks	15	3.80
22	Post-Fusion Contemporary	14	3.46
23	Cool Jazz	13	3.69
24	Dub/Ska/Reggae	13	4.04
25	Vocal Jazz	12	3.54
26	Blues	11	3.82
27	21st Century Modern	11	4.23
28	Jazz Related Improv/Composition	10	3.40
29	Swing	8	4.00
30	Latin Rock/Soul	6	3.75
31	African Fusion	6	3.92
32	Acid Jazz	4	3.50
33	Classic (1920s) Jazz	4	4.25
34	Dixieland	1	3.50
35	Afro-Cuban Jazz	1	4.50
36	Bossa Nova	1	3.50
37	Jazz Education	1	3.50

Latest Albums Reviews

ERIC BELL Vulnerability

Album · 2024 · Post Bop

“Vulnerability” is the debut album from keyboardist Eric Bell, but he is hardly a new comer. Eric has been working as a composer, arranger and instrumentalist for some top names, including Bernard Purdie, Jeff Hamilton and Marvin Smitty Smith. He also works as a composer and arranger for Disneyland’s Phat Cat Swingers. It took Eric only three years to earn his bachelors degree in jazz piano performance at Cal State Long Beach, and after he graduated he was hired as a teacher. “Vulnerability” is based around Eric’s post bop piano trio, but on several tracks they branch out into electronic fusion territory and include guest musicians as well.

Album opener, “Start”, starts things off ambitiously with some free jazz battles backed by broad electronic soundscapes for a huge cinematic texture. From here Eric continues the drama with an unusual version of “The Way You Look Tonight’ that continues the big cinematic approach. Wayne Shorter’s “Witch Hunt” is in a more traditional piano trio format, but the band experiments with the tune by varying the tempo every time they repeat it’s structure. “Fighting the Sun” brings on Dean Arber for some fusion style electric guitar shreds and title track, “Vulnerability” is a gospel flavored art pop ballad with Eric Hirschhorn on saxophone. The album closes with a couple hard bop swingers with “Beautiful Love” being particularly energetic.

“Vulnerability” is a remarkable debut album and the future looks bright for Eric. His jazz chops are impressive, but he is also adept at a broad range of musical styles and large scale arrangements. Bell can thunder like McCoy Tyner, get artsy melodic like Brad Mehldau and down home funky like Les McCann.

5 days ago
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Report #573763

ISAAC HAYES Tough Guys

Album · 1974 · Jazz Related Soundtracks

Considering the massive success that Isaac Hayes had with his “Shaft” soundtrack, you would think that a long career in film scoring lay head of him, but surprisingly enough, he only scored two more movies, “Three Tough Guys and “Truck Turner”. Since Isaac had been working in the ‘blaxploitation’ genre, maybe the film industry didn’t turn to Hayes any more when the blaxploitation fad faded. Whatever the reason, it is a shame that Isaac didn’t score more movies as he is one of the best, especially when it comes to crime soundtracks. In this field he holds up well against other big names such as Quincy Jones, J.J. Johnson and Henry Mancini. It’s also odd that these other soundtracks he composed are not nearly as well known as “Shaft”, because these other soundtracks have the same high caliber of creativity as the celebrated Shaft OST.

Confusingly enough, Hayes’ soundtrack to the movie “Three Tough Guys” was released on an album called just “Tough Guys”, and in the vocals of the title track, it sure sounds like Isaac is singing about two tough guys. Opening track, “Title Theme”, has Isaac singing about the tough guys and this track is a bit silly and finds it’s only value in 70s blaxploitation kitsch, after this track though, it’s all serious well composed orchestrated jazz and RnB. The only musician credits are to the ‘The Movement’, which was Isaac’s backup band and probably made up of members of the Bar-Kays. Along with stellar ensemble work, The Movement also supplies excellent jazzy solos on horns, guitars and keyboards.

Side two opener, “Hung Up on my Baby”, has a solemn introspective and downright spooky guitar riff that was successfully sampled by the Geto Boys for their tale of urban madness, “Minds Playing Tricks on Me”. Top track for all out jamming goes to “Joe Bell” with its intense horn charts, driving rhythm and high end trumpet solo. Slow groove funk number “Buns O Plenty” has an almost cartoonish flavor as it depicts human movement of a more comical nature. Elsewhere, “Tough Guys” features instrumentals that mix jazz, RnB and esoteric lounge music all spiced with bits of psychedlic rock and art pop arrangements

19 days ago
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Report #573670

MARQUIS HILL Composers Collective : Beyond The JukeBox

Album · 2024 · Nu Jazz

Trumpeter Marquis Hill is one of several current jazz artists who is mapping future paths for jazz by looking back to jazz’s African roots. Marquis takes those roots and mixes them with current trends in DrumnBass, neo-soul, hip-hop and modern jazz and creates some of the more happening directions in music today. His latest album, “Composers Collective: Beyond the Jukebox”, utilizes not only his current band, but also an all-star cast of collaborators, many of whom share Marquis’ vision for future jazz.

Opening track, “A Star is Born”, lays down Marquis’ blueprint, African rhythms driven by DnB beats and presented with complex structures and chord changes that avoid any sort of cliché’. The presence of Joel Ross on tuned percussion drives home that permeating African flavor. The DnB rhythms continue for the next couple tracks until we hit, “The Cool”, a neo-soul instrumental that features Hill on layered echoed trumpet lines. Although modern synthesized sounds are used for good effect throughout the album, they tend not to get in the way of the instrumentalists and their prowess on their given instrument.

The many instrumental hip-hop and neo-soul tracks sprinkled through out the album take on an almost library music type presence. “Beyond the Jukebox” is just brimming with useful soundtracks for those looking for a current hip sound. Marquis doesn’t mind reminding us that he can still swing with the best and “Smo Melody …” gets into some high energy post bop with Caroline Davis guesting on saxophone. On “Life Days’, Marquis gets into some African fusion as he trades licks with guitarist Jeff Parker. Vocalist Samora Pinderhughes delivers a classic heart breaking ballad while Christie Dashell sings on neo-soul groove number, “Chef’s Kiss”. “Beyond the Jukebox” is driven with cool modern beats, but this album is much more than another ‘acid jazz’ groove fest. Marquis has serious compositional chops that he puts to good use with arrangements that will hold your interest and keep you guessing as to what is coming up next. Want to hear what is new in jazz, this album is a good start.

26 days ago
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Report #573634

DEXTER GORDON The Other Side of Round Midnight

Album · 1986 · Jazz Related Soundtracks

“The Other Side of Round Midnight” is a collection of songs that didn’t appear in the famous movie, “Round Midnight”, or on the very successful soundtrack to that movie. These are the castaways, and they probably would not have been released except for the fact that the movie and it’s soundtrack ended up being way more successful than people thought, so possibly this album was one more attempt to squeeze a little more money out of one of the best movies about the jazz scene ever produced. These are songs that didn’t make the cut, except for one, but there are some real gems on here. The one song that did make the movie was a remake of “Tivoli”, and its just a segment of the tune made to fill a certain space in the movie. I would imagine if they knew they were going to be putting out this second album, they would have recorded the entire performance instead of fading it out after a couple minutes.

If you know anything about the movie, then you can guess that the main stars on here are Dexter Gordon and Herbie Hancock, but there are so many other talents on here, including Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton, Billy Higgins and many more. As mentioned earlier, there are some good tracks, including “Society Red”, a funky hard bop number and “Berangere’s Nighmare 2”, an energetic fusion jam featuring Hubbard and Tony Williams. The real gems though are two different versions of “Round Midnight”. This is a song we have all heard many times by many different artists, so it is a challenge to come up with a creative version that gives the song new life. On side one it’s an ensemble piece on which Dexter really shines, he is a genius who keeps you hanging on every note he plays. But the best track is Herbie’s closing version of the song on which he channels, the blues, French composers and the avant-garde. This version could become a contemporary concert hall piece if it was transcribed.

The rest of the album is a mixed bag with two ballads, one featuring Gordon and another featuring vocalist Bobby McFerrin and a casual jam session led by Wayne Shorter that probably would not have appeared on an album except to fill space on this afterthought production and a couple more standards played well, but not particularly inspiring. Despite some very good music here and there, the main problem with this album is that it comes across as something thrown together without any particular forethought.

31 days ago
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Report #573618

THE JOYMAKERS Down Where The Bluebonnets Grow

Album · 2024 · Classic (1920s) Jazz

Although early jazz styles like Dixieland and swing have had many revivals and dedicated bands that keep their sound alive, the style that historically came in between those styles, classic jazz (mid 20s - early 30s) has often been overlooked. Lately there have been several bands that are rising to prominence playing classic jazz, or ‘hot jazz’, as it was called back in the day, but many of these modern bands approach the style in too polite of manner. Back in the late 20s, this was music for gangsters, criminals, illegal alcohol manufacturers and drug abusers. It was wild crazy up tempo music that was outlawed in fascist and communist countries alike, as well as in parts of the US too. With their debut album, “Down Where the Bluebonnets Grow”, The Joymakers do a much better job than most when it comes to giving the music that raucous energy that makes it come alive.

The Joymakers are from Austin Texas and band leader Colin Hancock is like a walking encyclopedia when it comes to his knowledge of early jazz in that area. His band concentrates on music that falls in between the early jazz cities of New Orleans, San Antonio and Kansas City. Bands in that southern mid-west region were often called ‘territory bands’, as they often worked within a certain territory as opposed to around the entire country or around the world. Territory bands had distinctive personal sounds all their own. Artists from this region often had a bit of country in their sound, which is great for a working band in Austin. As Colin is apt to point out, jazz in this era didn’t ‘swing’ as we know it today, instead they ‘stomped’, which has a more pronounced two beat feel to it and syncopations more similar to ragtime than mid 30s swing.

All of the songs on this album are good, but its those up tempo numbers that really push the energy. “Tiger Rag” and “Wolverine Blues” supply the juice, but it’s “Crazy Quilt” that really gets the adrenaline flowing. Turn this up on your next drive and watch that speedometer climb. Some of the tracks have vocals, which are probably useful in live situations for entertaining people not normally into early jazz. The lyrics are often humorous and full of sexual double entendres from that era, but for the music lovers, the silly vocals may get in the way of the jams. This CD comes with an extensive booklet that will tell you a lot about this music, but this isn’t museum music, its get down party time.

47 days ago
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Report #573588

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Shouts

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Warthur wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Hey dude,

You've banned me from the forums but I can still access the review submission system and site interactions.

If that is intentional then fair enough but if not I thought it'd only be honest to give you a heads up.

Warthur wrote:

more than 2 years ago

js - please clear some space in your PM inbox, I'm trying to send you something.