Ben Ratliff

Saxophonist Tim Warfield's All Star Jazzy Christmas, vividly showcases a collection of traditional holiday songs in a variety of moods, realized from an improvisational perspective. This high quality recording featuring a stellar musical cast, including trumpeter Terell Stafford, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, pianist Cyrus Chestnut, bassist Rodney Whitaker, drummer Clarence Penn, percussionist Daniel Sadownick, vocalists Joanna Pascale and Jamie Davis and pianist Neil Podgurski. The CD, is an array of not only fun, but notably imaginative renditions of your favorite holiday songs like, 'Let it Snow,' 'Joy to the World,' 'The Little Drummer Boy,' and 'Silent Night.'

"My Favorite Things" was released in March 1961 and was the first album on which John Coltrane played soprano saxophone in addition to his tenor saxophone. His soprano stars on two of the album's four songs, including his unforgettable rendition of the title track, written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the musical The Sound of Music.

Modern Chant (subtitled Inspiration from Gregorian Chant) is an album by pianist Paul Bley, cellist David Eyges, and drummer Bruce Ditmas recorded in 1994 and released on the Japanese Venus label.

In 2017, Phish performed "The Baker's Dozen," a milestone 13-show run at Madison Square Garden held over 17 nights. During the run, the band performed 26 unique sets featuring a grand total of 237 songs with not one repeated. The Baker's Dozen earned accolades from a wide array of national publications, including a nod from Rolling Stone's David Fricke in his "Year In Rock 2017" wrap-up. "What I saw," wrote The New York Times' Ben Ratliff, " was a purposeful band in energetic form, better than I've seen and heard recently, more willing to let songs assume their own proportions, and going far into it's own catalog." The Baker's Dozen 3-CD (with 13 tracks hand-picked by the band) has been fully remixed by legendary engineer Elliot Scheiner.

You can understand why musicians cover entire albums when the subject is an epic like Kind of Blue or A Love Supreme. It’s a little harder to see what would prompt someone to do a track-by-track remake of saxophonist Hank Mobley’s Soul Station. It may be Mobley’s best record, but it doesn’t crack the 200 recommended recordings in either Ben Ratliff’s book of essential LPs or The Rough Guide to Jazz, and Mobley merits barely a passing mention in Ted Gioia’s landmark book The History of Jazz. Israeli saxophonist Eli Degibri, however, says Soul Station is his touchstone and lifelong inspiration. His challenge in covering the whole thing is to find something new to say through it.

Karol is Alex LoRe's first release on Challenge Records. The compositions are influenced by a variety of genres, ranging from European classical music to today's most influential artists on both the jazz and popular music scenes. Noted by Ben Ratliff of the New York Times as a saxophonist who is "…making the connections among about 70 years' worth of contemplative, articulate and light-toned players", Manhattan-based saxophonist and composer Alex LoRe is one of the most in demand alto saxophonists on the current New York City jazz scene.