Criss Cross Jazz new releases February 2018

CRISS 1397 CD  NOAH PREMINGER - INGENUITY -

Thirty-year-old tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger's debut on Criss Cross in a pianoless context with trumpeter Jason Palmer and bassist Kim Cass, who record here with the brilliant drummer Dan Weiss for the first time on this occasion.

The hour-long program consists of nine Preminger originals. Each evokes a different mood and ambiance with strong melodies and percolating grooves that provoke unfailingly cohesive, thematic improvisations by Preminger and Palmer.

Genuinity is consistently compelling, and repays repeated hearings.

CRISS 1398 CD  VICTOR GOULD - EARTHLINGS -

On his sophomore leader CD and Criss Cross debut, pianist Victor Gould -- joined throughout by bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Eric McPherson, with guest appearances by Tim Warfield on soprano saxophone, Godwin Louis on alto saxophone, and percussionist Khalil Kwame Bell -- presents a diverse, well-paced program comprised of originals and a cohort off-the-beaten-track numbers from the Great Jazz Songbook.

Gould has spent consequential time apprenticing in groups led by such modern masters as Donald Harrison, Ralph Peterson, Terri Lyne Carrington and Wallace Roney, and you can hear it in his fresh, harmonically erudite approach to the repertoire, which he addresses -- and inhabits -- on its own terms of engagement while retaining an entirely 21st century perspective.