That a jazz quartet with only one member under the age of 70 can sound thoroughly modern says a lot about the ageless creativity of its members: Eighty-three- year-old alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, who played ...

Known primarily as a jazz-fusion innovator, guitarist Frisell imparts his unique palette of timbres, textures, and colors to a chamber setting with his 858 Quartet (Jenny Scheinman, violin; Eyvind Kang, viola; Hank Roberts, cello), founded ...

Very few records are genuinely unique; musicians usually work with known frameworks, and in the rare instances where really new territory is charted, it doesn’t take long for settlers to arrive. When RCA released trumpeter ...

Despite some claims of “authenticity” in the press release, that isn’t really the object of this engaging record. Like many contemporary musicians, Brian Carpenter sees no reason to settle on any particular musical style. Boy ...

One hazard of being on the retail side of the audio biz is that you end up hearing a lot of the same music—ad nauseam. And while I haven’t sold high-end gear for 16 years ...

Boulez first heard the music of Karol Szymanowski as a teenager, but never championed it until now. Tant pis. His accounts of both works are simply gorgeous. He shows an immediate affinity for the Concerto’s ...

Lisbon-born Artur Pizarro grew up hearing this music by two masters of keyboard composition from the other side of the Iberian Peninsula. His performances breathe with the natural ease of long familiarity. The pianist’s lyrical ...

Pianist Marilyn Crispell attracted an initial following with a full-fisted attack, dense tone clusters, and bold dissonances inspired by Cecil Taylor, later refining her style during a ten-year stint with Anthony Braxton. She brought her ...

Steven Richman and Harmonie Ensemble/ New York have been a fixture on New York’s musical scene for three decades. As its name implies, the ensemble is at heart a wind band. But its precise formation ...

The New York Art Quartet was formed in 1964 by trombonist Roswell Rudd and alto saxophonist John Tchicai. Rudd was a member of another quartet, completely devoted to the music of Thelonious Monk, and wanted ...

Max Reger has a reputation of being dour and rigorous, almost mathematical; after hearing this concerto, I would call him dramatic, rhetorical, convincing, and deeply romantic. It’s an odd approach, the way the first movement, ...

“What would a cicada do with a full orchestra?” Meira Warshauer asked at the Dayton Philharmonic’s 2007 performance of this co-commissioned piece; she answered with her optimistic and brilliantly orchestrated Symphony No. 1, Living Breathing ...

Prokofiev’s great Third Piano Concerto has been Martha Argerich’s signature piece since she won competitions with it at the age of 16 in 1957. If you’re used to Bryon Janis’ reading on Mercury or have ...

Asked why he had written the songs on the 1971 concept album What’s Going On, soul singer and composer Marvin Gaye told labelmate Smokey Robinson that the inspiration had come from a higher power. “I ...

After a series of ambitious, atmospheric concept albums over the years, Robbie Robertson delivers his fifth album, the bluesy How To Become Clairvoyant, his most personal and appealing. Finally comfortable writing about his past, Robertson ...