Crossings John Kerstetter

Limited edition 5-CD box set containing five classic, influential John Coltrane albums from his Impulse discography.
Each album newly remastered from the original master tapes.

Limited edition 5-CD box set containing five classic, influential John Coltrane albums from his Impulse discography.
Each album newly remastered from the original master tapes.

Guitarist John Scofield and tenor saxophonist Eddie Harris make a very complementary team on this upbeat set of funky jazz, for both have immediately identifiable sounds and adventurous spirits. Along with a fine rhythm section that includes Larry Goldings on piano and organ, Scofield and Harris interact joyfully on ten of the guitarist's originals.

Packaged together in this five-disc box set from Verve/Hip-O-Select, these titles represent the albums Impulse issued following John Coltrane's death in 1967, and remain some of the most controversial in his catalog (numerous critics thought – and many still do – that dubious choices were made in assembling them).

In the jazz world, there are artists who are consistent but predictable and artists who are unpredictable but inconsistent. John Scofield, meanwhile, is an impressive example of a jazzman who is both unpredictable and consistent. You never know what the risk-taking guitarist will do from one album to the next, but he rarely provides an album that is flat-out disappointing. Überjam is a major departure from 2000's Works for Me, the Verve date that preceded it. While Works for Me is essentially a straight-ahead post-bop outing and employs acoustic-oriented players, like pianist Brad Mehldau and bassist Christian McBride, Überjam is pure, unadulterated fusion. This album always has a jazz mentality - Überjam is as spontaneous, free-spirited, and uninhibited as any bop session that was recorded in Rudy Van Gelder's studio in the '50s…

The fifth and final volume in Universal's massive John Coltrane: The Impulse! Albums in the Originals series, contains five recordings, all issued posthumously between 1970 and 1973. Two of these, Transition and Sun Ship, feature Coltrane's classic quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones. Of the remaining albums, two are live recordings – Live in Seattle and Concert in Japan – the remaining one being the infamous Infinity.

With the release of Lifeline, John Stein celebrates a musical career as one of the most diverse jazz guitarists of his generation. Selected highlights from Stein’s varied discography capture his eclectic spirit with his honey-toned guitar effortlessly guiding listeners across several decades of brilliance. After retiring from a longtime career at Berklee College of Music where he held a professorship since 1999, and upon recently contracting a rare autoimmune disease, the esteemed jazz veteran decided to synthesize his remarkable body of recorded work. The recorded output surveyed on this compilation spans more than twenty years, from Stein’s 1999’s Green Street to the most recent recording, 2021’s Serendipity. Throughout this assortment of releases, Stein has been consistently regaled for his expansiveness, turning heads with his emotive, subtle, grooving, and precise stylistic excursions. With dazzling guitar playing, notable contributions from the side musicians, creative arrangements, and compositions that are at once sophisticated and memorable, the full scope of John Stein’s instrumental and compositional prowess is on display on this prodigious, varied, and musically rewarding retrospective.

Dayna Stephens is a contemporary jazz tenor saxophonist whose sound is roundly hailed as warm, effusive, and sophisticated, much like his admitted influences Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter. As a performer in the neo-bop post-Michael Brecker tradition, he'll also be compared in blindfold tests alongside Joe Lovano, Bob Mintzer, Chris Potter, and Seamus Blake. Nonetheless, Stephens has come out of the gate with a collection of original modern mainstream compositions backed by some established heavyweights of American music to support him. "Contagious" is the best track on the date to feature the young and brilliant pianist Taylor Eigsti, a chip off the ol' Chick Corea block. His complex, probing intricate rhythm changes spur the band on to a high level, while in a modal and beautifully spiritual area during the standard "But Beautiful," Eigsti coaxes Stephens to a cozier radiance tempered by restraint…

It isn't surprising that John Scofield spent some time in Miles Davis' employ. Like that innovative trumpeter, Scofield has always had a restless spirit. One never knows what to expect when a new Scofield album arrives; Up All Night, it turns out, pretty much picks up where its predecessor, Überjam, leaves off. Like Überjam, Up All Night is a fusion effort that manages to be intellectual and funky at the same time. Of course, intellect and funkiness don't automatically cancel one another out - Davis demonstrated that on many occasions. But some artists have a hard time balancing the two in an effective way…