Jazz

This month we review: Patchwork Jazz Orchestra, Joe Lovano, Duncan Eagles and Joey Defrancesco

This month we review: Rymden, Eric Dolphy, Emile Parisien Quartet, and Andrew Cyrille, Wadada Leo Smith, Bill Frisell

This month we review: Christian Sands, Lionel Loueke, Shai Maestro, & Massimiliano Coclite 4tet

This month we review: Soft Machine, Bansangu Orchestra, Tony Kofi and The Organisation, and New York All-Stars.

This month we review: Stefano Bollani, Timo Lassy, Renee Rosnes, and Andreas Varady

Few would claim that Duke’s 1960s Reprise albums contained his finest work, but four of them add up to lot of music. His great soloists wallow in the catchy melodies of Mary Poppins while Ellington ’65 and ’66 cover the hits of the day, sounding fresher now than the new takes of other leaders’ swing classics that make up Will The Big Bands Ever Come Back?. The fifth disc has Ellington’s tunes but not his whole band, on a 1963 small-group album for Atlantic with violinists Stephane Grappelly, Ray Nance and Svend Asmussen. Travelling the world and recording his own music on RCA, Ellington did so much in the 1960s that these recordings seem little more than a sidelight on his genius, but they’re still wonderful.

Clearly 2006 was a good year for the great accordionist. He’d just formed his brilliant Tangaria Quartet, and with mandolin player Hamilton De Holanda guesting, they wowed the audience at the Marciac jazz festival in August. September found the group in Sao Paulo and, again with stunning contributions from De Holanda, they recorded Luz Negra. It’s actually the contents of that album that you get here, plus ‘Tango Pour Claude’ and ‘New York Tango’, which opened and closed the Live In Marciac 2006 album.