The Kazzrie Jaxen Quartet | Quaternity | NA1060

Sometimes virtuosic players merge into the thing they were clearly born for. Charley Krachy’s saxophone — where does such beauty of soul come from? Heaven and Earth meet. Kazzrie Jaxen’s piano — earth-scattering harmony and melody. Ascension into liberation, cutting roads through a wilderness sky. Don Messina’s bass — intense, whispered poetry. The quiet between the notes, like Sufic meditation, which effect it has. Drummer Bill Chattin’s rhythms enter a depth of being — beating like a heart to the pulsing weave of the other three voices. These musicians assemble and slowly, with the playing of the music, become the mountain top where God and Man dance in sheer, unobstructed heights and distillation of joy. — Helena Clare Pittman Continue reading

Connie Crothers Quartet | Deep Friendship | NA1058

The deepest friendship fosters freedom and from there, the joy of flight. The deepest friendship, like real freedom, is pluralistically unified, a place where the boundaries are malleable, at one moment wide open to the slow build and arc of myriad histories, then suddenly capturing a single moment in all its import, a look, a shared remembrance, a phrase spoken with neither artifice nor conceit, a simple act of communication whose ramifications define and transcend the shared experience, worlds and galaxies emerging from the gestural seed. Continue reading

Connie Crothers | Jessica Jones | Live at the Freight | NA1056

A stealth recording deserving of wide spread critical acclaim! Straight up, Jessica Jones and Connie Crothers Live at the Freight is an absolute gem! Why? Simple…Take iconic standards performed at an exemplary level such as Duke Ellington’s “In A Sentimental Mood” then carefully intermingled some highly accessible yet spontaneously energetic free jazz and you have a live duo that is crossing musical planes and welcoming everyone along for the journey. …Live at the Freight is spontaneous creativity at its finest. – Brent Black, Criticaljazz.com Continue reading

Kazzrie Jaxen | Mark Weber | A Million Shimmering Fish | NA1057

An evolution of gratitude to Mark for the silent spaces between the thoughts, words, and poems from which this concert arose; to Tom Guralnick for planet Outpost, base camp to parallel dimensions; to Janet Simon for divine hospitality and terrestrial support; to the audience of Dreamers who dove into the cosmic womb with us; to Steven Schmidt for discerning notes and words from satelite beeps; to Dana Duke for adding shine; to Jim Gale and JB Bryan for manifesting design; and to the playful Universerse, for having that car zoom by after Poem #4, conjuring a rocket ship vanishing into outer space, or a long forgotten inner galaxy… Kazzrie Jaxen Continue reading

Michael Levy | Thoughtless | NA1051

If your mind wants to think, let it! Merely bend away like a martial artist. Let the thoughts fly as they will and the universe will have its way with the music. You can count on that always. The mind? Don’t trust it when it comes to improvising. Trust your heart. Trust your gut. Trust life. When you trust like that you can dance on the razor’s edge and have a blast! — Michael Levy Continue reading

Tony Jones | Kenny Wollesen | Charles Burnham | Pitch, Rhythm, and Consciousness | NA1049LP

“On this ruminative record – and, indeed, it is a record, released primarily on vinyl, with MP3 downloads available—saxophonist Tony Jones, violinist Charles Burnham and percussionist Kenny Wollesen show themselves wholly comfortable within the quiet sonic space about them. Jones is the lead voice—the lead traveler, as it were—working his way across a terrain that is at once wide open and timeless, and newly created by the musicians themselves…the album simmers along sonic thought lines that…pop with human intensity.” – Matt Marshall All About Jazz.com Continue reading