Adam Larson – Selective Amnesia
Amnesia is the loss of memory. Selective amnesia, in common conversation, is the perceived intentional refusal to remember certain things – to block things or simply not acknowledge the memory of them. For his album, Selective Amnesia (Inner Circle Music, 2015), saxophonist Adam Larson documents his musical growth over the past three years.
“For me, the process of accepting the things I can and cannot control has been an ongoing journey,” he says. “The music on this album largely serves as my way of musically coping and reflecting during periods in which I felt most tested by my own ego and self-imposed drama.”
On this date, Larson is accompanied by Matthew Stevens, guitar; Fabian Almazon, piano and Rhodes; Matt Penman, bass; and Jimmy Macbride, drums
Michael Cain challenges audiences to presume to know what style he’s going to play. Having a career that has led him to perform with an array of diverse artists gives him an expansive chest of material to pursue. And so he does with Sola (2015), his 10th album as a leader.
The German group Dancing Fantasy consists of keyboardist duo Chris Williams and Curtis McLaw. During a recording in the studio 1 Innovative Communication’s president Mark Sakautzky heard their sound and directly offered them a contract. This was the start of Dancing Fantasy on the label IC Digit.
In a time when many artists are releasing cookie-cutter music, albums wherein each song clocks in at a radio-friendly four minutes, it’s refreshing when a musician steps outside the box. Saxophonist Noah Preminger does that in a big way with Pivot: Live at the 55 Bar (2015). The album has just two songs, each more than 30 minutes long.
Smooth Jazz Daily 