Manty Alexander

Heartcore Records is proud to present Introducing Cecil Alexander, Alexander’s debut album as a bandleader, featuring Will Gorman on organ and Steven Crammer on drums. Alexander’s playing is steeped in the rich history of the guitarists that have come before him, and he carries this torch into the future, breathing new life and passion into guitar-based jazz.

Tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander delivers his first album of all ballads with 2013's Touching. Once again working with his longtime cohorts – pianist Harold Mabern, bassist John Webber and drummer Joe Farnsworth – Alexander has crafted a bluesy, soulful, and romantic album that, while soft in conception, is in no way smooth. Alexander is a long avowed straight-ahead jazz stylist and Touching is no exception. Here, he plays in his own no-nonsense way, often with limited embellishment on the melody lines and always with a muscular sense of rhythm and swing when soloing. What is also pleasing is that Mabern and Alexander have chosen a handful of lesser-performed songs.

The patron saint of neglected instruments, Hindemith composed more than 30 sonatas for very diverse resources – including, unusually, such instruments as the bass tuba and double bass. Among the more obscure combinations is the Sonata for Althorn and Piano, which opens this arresting new disc, and stands out further for including a spoken dialogue between the two players (here, Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov) at the start of its finale. Sonata-starved trombonists also value Hindemith’s contribution to their repertoire, but as Gérard Costes shows, this is not merely Gebrauchsmusik (utility music), useful only to performers themselves. Played with blazing tone by Jeroen Berwaerts, the Trumpet Sonata emerges with particular brilliance. These three brass sonatas generally come across with more subtlety than on the well-known recordings by Glenn Gould and friends. Anchoring this new project, Alexander Melnikov is a superbly thoughtful and questing pianist.

Over his long recording and performing career, Monty Alexander has displayed an ability to excel with any jazz or related genre. From swing to bop and hard bop, from reggae to mainstream jazz, you name it and Alexander has done it and done it well. On his latest and fourth album for the Telarc label, the veteran pianist takes time to show his appreciation and gratitude to his adopted home, America, through a series of songs in honor of people and images that shaped his attitude toward this country, whether it be cowboy movies he used to see as a youngster in Jamaica or the impression made upon him by a variety of American performers, including Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, and others of like diversity…

Alexander Ullman was the winner of the 2011 Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest. He studied at the Purcell School, the Curtis Institute and the Royal College of Music. His teachers include William Fong, Leon Fleisher and Dmitri Alexeev. Alexander’s debut album on Rubicon was a recital of great Russian ballet music arranged for piano – Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky – and received enthusiastic reviews from around the world. This album is his first concerto recording – the two Liszt Concertos are coupled with the B minor Sonata.

Indonesian pianist Joey Alexander’s first Mack Avenue title is also his first to contain all originals, an artistic shift he began with his 2020 Verve release Warna. The precocity he displayed with the music of Monk, Coltrane, and others on earlier releases is still there, as is the unforced, crackling rapport with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Kendrick Scott. Guest appearances by guitarist Gilad Hekselman and saxophonist Chris Potter (playing soprano on “On the Horizon,” tenor on “Winter Blues” and “Rise Up”) add texture and top-tier improvisational firepower. The trio cuts are elegant, a bit on the moody and introspective side, with a season cycle sub-theme interspersed (“Winter Blues” and “Summer Rising” find Alexander on tasty Fender Rhodes, another new element in his evolving sound).

With 6 Anissimov is back in peak form and certainly beats out the other Russian contenders for the title…Anissimov and his Moscow players give an excellent account of themselves, and the engineers have obliged with truly room-filling volume, taking care to bring out the deep bass and rich, dark coloring so important for a full appreciation of the score. There's nothing subtle about the playing — especially the trenchant low brass — but then save for the central sections there's not much that's subtle about the music either, and Anissimov's exuberant embrace of the outer movements is immensely satisfying.