So, you live in smalltown nowhere and the only live jazz you have access to is either none, or a Utah basketball team on ESPN. Don’t worry, because Smalls Jazz Club in New York City has been recording their live sets for a few years now and you can listen to them in the club’s online Artist+Audio Archive.

Opened in 1993 by Mitch Borden, Smalls Jazz Club became a Greenwich Village institution and mainstay for such then up-and-coming jazz talent as drummer Brian Blade, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, pianist Sam Yahel and others. Sadly, Borden was forced to close the club during the city’s financial woes after 9/11. Then in February of 2007, Borden and his newfound partners musicians Spike Wilner and Lee Kostrinsky re-opened Smalls.

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David Axelrod - Seriously Deep
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ray Barretto - The Other Road
 
 
 
 
 
 
Anthony Braxton - The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton
 
 
 
 
 
 
Terry Callier - Occasional Rain (Remastered)
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Crusaders - Pass the Plate
 
 
 
 
 
 
George Duke - Faces in Reflection (Verve)
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dizzy Gillespie - The Cool World
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gene Harris - Tone Tantrum
 
 
 
 
 
 
Eddie Henderson - Heritage
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bobbi Humphrey - Fancy Dancer
 
 
 
 
 
 
Arif Mardin - Journey
 
 
 
 
 
 
Brother Jack McDuff - Gin and Orange
 
 
 
 
 
 
Brew Moore - The Kerouac Connection
 
 
 
 
 
 
Johnny Pate - Outrageous
 
 
 
 
 
 
John Patton - Soul Connection
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sun Ra & His Arkestra - Some Blues But Not the Kind That’s Blue
 
 
 
 
 
 
Enrico Rava - The Pilgrim and the Stars
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gene Shaw - Break Through
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ben Sidran - Don’t Let Go
 
 
 
 
 
 
Louis Smith - Here Comes Louis Smith (RVG)
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Three Sounds - Soul Symphony
 
 
 
 
 
 
Charles Tolliver - Mosaic Select: Charles Tolliver
 
 
 
 
 
 
Grover Washington Jr. - Soul Box
 
 
 
 
 
 
Reuben Wilson and the Cost of Living - Got to Get Your Own
 
 
 
 
 
 

Azymuth - Butterfly
 
 
 
 
 
 
Brian Blade Fellowship - Season of Changes
 
 
 
 
 
 
Anthony Braxton - Beyond Quantum
 
 
 
 
 
 
James Carter - Present Tense
 
 
 
 
 
 
Francisco Mora Catlett - Outerzone
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gerald Cleaver - Gerald Cleaver’s Detroit
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bill Dixon/Exploding Star Orchestra - Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dave Douglas & Keystone - Moonshine
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lisle Ellis - Sucker Punch Requiem
 
 
 
 
 
 
Kenny Garrett - Sketches of MD
 
 
 
 
 
 
Billy Harper - Blueprints of Jazz, Vol. 2
 
 
 
 
 
 
Charles Lloyd - Rabo de Nube
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rudresh Mahanthappa - Kinsmen
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Bennie Maupin Quartet - Early Reflections
 
 
 
 
 
 
Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis - Two Men with the Blues
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jason Palmer - Songbook
 
 
 
 
 
 
Evan Parker/Transatlantic Art Ensemble - Boustrophedon (In Six Furrows)
 
 
 
 
 
William Parker - Double Sunrise Over Neptune
 
 
 
 
 
 
Steve Reid Ensemble - Daxaar
 
 
 
 
 
 
Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures - Dream Garden
 
 
 
 
 
 
Heikki Sarmanto - Moonflower
 
 
 
 
 
 
Todd Sickafoose - Tiny Resistors
 
 
 
 
 
 
Alex Sipiagin - Out of the Circle
 
 
 
 
 
 
Nick Vayenas - Synesthesia
 
 
 
 
 
 
Spike Wilner - 3 to Go
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jacob Young - Sideways
 
 
 
 
 

Since he released the completely solo For Alto in 1968, the accepted image of Anthony Braxton has been that he is more a theoretician and art music composer than a jazz musician. Therefore, it might seem strange that Mosaic Records is giving his Complete Arista Recordings one of their fabled box set treatments. But Braxton is both — and much more. This set — as well as the original Arista recordings — were produced by Michael Cuscuna, Mosaic/Blue Note label head. The sheer scope of these recordings is staggering. What we get in this amazingly detailed collection is the weightiest argument yet for Braxton’s range and depth of field as a musical thinker and his role as a pillar of modern jazz. The individual albums — New York, Fall 1974; Five Pieces, 1975; Creative Orchestra Music, 1976; Duets, 1976; For Trio; The Montreux/Berlin Concerts; Alto Saxophone Improvisations, 1979; For Four Orchestras; For Two Pianos — showcase him in a rainbow of settings, from quintets and duets, to trios, quartets, and solo; as the leader of a big band, and as a playing conductor. The players are a who’s who of the vanguard in both America and Europe: Muhal Richard Abrams, Leroy Jenkins, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, Jerome Cooper, Leo Smith, Cecil Bridgewater, Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, Karl Berger, Ursula Oppens, Frederic Rzewski, Phillip Wilson, Henry Threadgill, and many more.

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One of American music’s last links to its glorious, pre-rock past has dropped from the chain with the passing on October 4 at age 95 of reedman Al Gallodoro. Once billed as “The King of the Saxophone,” Gallodoro had one of the longest ever-professional careers in music, which began in a Birmingham, Alabama, vaudeville house in 1926 and ended with Gallodoro’s last gig at the Corning Jazz and Harvest Festival on September 20. Gallodoro played alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet, leading to another nickname, “triple threat.” Gallodoro first came to prominence in 1936 when he joined the Paul Whiteman Orchestra as first chair alto, and though Whiteman kept his orchestra going only intermittently after 1940, Gallodoro stayed in that job until Whiteman died in 1967. In 1942 Gallodoro was also named to the handpicked NBC Symphony led by Arturo Toscanini; Gallodoro claimed to hold the world’s record for playing the opening glissando to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, having performed it more than 10,000 times. Gallodoro favored a lithe, “classical” tone though he moved easily between the worlds of classical, jazz, and pop music.

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