Criss Cross Jazz - Older news
October 2022 new release
On October 28, 2022 we are releasing Standard From Film (Criss 1410) by the Mike Moreno Quartet.
Like a well – wrought character in a Hollywood movie, Standards From Film, guitarist Mike Moreno’s fourth Criss Cross album, exists atop a solid, cogent back story. Recorded in December 2021, when the world and New York City – Houston-born Moreno’s home for more than two decades – were no longer on COVID lockdown, it documents the leader’s exhaustive investigations into the provenance of ten iconic standards that, as he puts it, “are the summer jazz workshop tunes” – they say you have to learn these songs if you want to be a jazz musician. You learn them very young or in the beginning days of your journey into this music.
The album was recorded December 22, 2021 at the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio in NY. Recording engineer Mike Marciano also did the editing, mixing and mastering at Systems Two in NY.
New vinyl release of Criss Cross Jazz on October 14, 2022
On October 14, 2022 Criss Cross Jazz partner Elemental Music has released an audiophile vinyl version of the amazing 1994 Criss Cross Jazz album Boss Organ (Criss 1080) by Melvin Rhyne
Organist Melvin Rhyne (1936-2013) was best known for his association with guitar legend Wes Montgomery in the 1960s. On this amazing Criss Cross album (presented here on vinyl for the first time ever), Rhyne shows that he was one of the finest jazz players on his instrument. On Boss Organ (a pun on Montgomery’s classic LP Boss Guitar, on which Rhyne also played) he is backed by guitarist Peter Bernstein, drummer Kenny Washington, and, most importantly, young tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman, then in his mid-twenties, who despite beginning his recording career just two years earlier, had already participated on more than a dozen albums.
The quartet offers a superb set of hard-swinging performances, including readings of well-known standards such as "All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm" and "Jeannine", as well as more obscure tunes such as Hubert Laws’ “Shades of Light”, Stevie Wonder’s “You and I”, and Mel Tormé’s “Born to Be Blue”.
This is the third release by Elemental Music of a classic Criss Cross Jazz album on vinyl, under license from Criss Cross Jazz.
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September 2022 new release
On September 30, 2022 we are releasing Sky Continuous (Criss 1411) by the Noah Preminger Trio.
Noah Preminger brings with Sky Continuous, an exceptionally compelling trio recital with bass virtuoso Kim Cass, who has performed on 10 of Preminger’s 11 prior albums including Criss Cross releases Genuinity (Criss 1397) and After Life (Criss 1404), and drumset icon Bill Stewart, who had never before shared a bandstand with Preminger.
The music, which includes eight Preminger originals, is logically structured but adventurous and open-ended, containing numerous portals for free expression – it never feels confined. Surprisingly, it’s only Preminger’s second documented exploration of the tenor saxophone trio function.
Sky Continuous came to be when Preminger reached out to Jerry Teekens, the namesake son of Criss Cross founder Gerry Teekens, who passed away in 2019. “Before Gerry died, we were talking about doing another record together, and he said, ‘You would sound great with Bill Stewart. Have you ever played with him?’ I said, ‘No, but I really enjoy his playing and that would be nice.’ So he said, ‘Why don’t we do a trio record with Bill and Kim Cass?’ He knew that I loved Kim’s playing. After Jerry decided to continue the label, I told him about his father’s suggestion."
New vinyl release of Criss Cross Jazz on May 27, 2022
On May 27, 2022 Criss Cross Jazz partner Elemental Music is releasing an audiophile vinyl version of the seminal 1994 Criss Cross Jazz album Yam Yam (Criss 1094) by Mark Turner
This early quintet outing is a strong showcase for Mark Turner the composer. It's also an important chapter in the special relationship between Turner and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. The two would later work mainly in piano-less settings, but here they are joined by pianist Brad Mehldau, who adds his advanced harmonic insight to the session.
One could rightly bill the record as "Turner and Rosenwinkel with the Brad Mehldau Trio," as the rhythm section consists of bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, Mehldau's longtime collaborators. The disc boasts five strong Turner originals, including "Zurich", which would resurface on 2001's Dharma Days. (This version features guest tenorists Seamus Blake and Terrence Dean.)
Yam Yam reveals much about the evolution of all these players, and is therefore well worth the attention of serious fans.
This is the second release by Elemental Music of a classic Criss Cross Jazz album on vinyl, under license from Criss Cross Jazz.
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May 2022 new release
On May 20, 2022 we are releasing Swing To This (Criss 1406) by Opus 5.
With Swing On This, the all-star quintet Opus 5 presents its fifth Criss Cross album, and first since 2015, when Criss Cross released Tickle (Criss 1383), which itself was preceded – in backwards chronology – by Progression (Criss 1369), Pentasonic (Criss 1351), and Introducing Opus 5 (Criss 1339), each recorded a year apart. The “all star” sobriquet is not an exaggeration – the collective discographies of trumpeter Alex Sipiagin, tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake, pianist David Kikoski, bassist Boris Kozlov, and drummer Donald Edwards, all international first-callers, total more than 30 Criss Cross leader dates.
Opus 5 gestated in 2010, when Sipiagin and Blake, brainstorming over drinks at the bar in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport during a between-flights layover, decided to organize a new band to play original music that did not reference the music of Charles Mingus that they’d been playing together for many years in the Mingus Big Band, which Kozlov has music-directed since 2004. They recruited Kikoski, Kozlov and Edwards, each a colleague of long standing in the MBB. Edwards suggested the name, signifying on Kozlov’s big band arrangement of Mingus’ Opus 4 that all members admired. They contacted Criss Cross proprietor Gerry Teekens, who knew them all, and green-lit that first album in 2011. Through the next six years, “the five bandleaders and five sidemen,” as Kozlov puts it, enhanced their already considerable chemistry on periodic tours in Europe and Russia, developing material that they documented from one date to the next.
During the seven-year gap that separates Tickle from Swing On This, the members found fewer opportunities to play. Everyone was busy with other projects. Covid-19 made it problematic to convene. Blake and Sipiagin relocated to Europe. Then, last summer, when Blake scheduled a trip in New York to conduct personal business, Opus 5 seized the opportunity to go in the studio to record eight pieces with engineer Mike Marciano. With a single brief rehearsal under their belt, they navigate the repertoire with fluent mutual intuition and deep commitment, as though they’d been probing it for months.
January 2022 new releases
On January 15, 2022 we are releasing two new albums: A Glimpse Of The Eternal (Criss 1408) by David Binney, and Misha's Wishes (Criss 1409) by Misha Tsiganov.
The tenth Criss Cross album with David Binney’s imprimatur, A Glimpse of the Eternal, is, he says, “completely different than anything I’ve ever done – chilled out, an honest and pleasant vibe, nothing too complicated or intense.”
If that self-description seems at odds with the intense, complex tonal personality that Binney has presented on his 30-album discography since 1990 ... well, that was his intention.
Misha Tsiganov, who lived in Leningrad in the former Soviet Union until he emigrated to the U.S. in 1991, at 25, has never shied away from a challenge. That’s apparent from the levels of complexity that Tsiganov embeds in the 18 arrangements and 9 originals on his three prior Criss Cross albums – The Artistry of the Standard (Criss 1367), Spring Feelings (Criss 1384), and Playing With The Wind (Criss 1401).
Tsiganov’s latest, Misha’s Wishes, doesn’t eschew technical complexity. But the feel of this sophisticated, emotionally nuanced program – performed by old friends trumpeter Alex Sipiagin, tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Donald Edwards, themselves leaders of multiple Criss Cross dates, with whom Tsiganov feels such simpatico that he once postponed a recording session until all were available – is different than its predecessors.
August 2021 new release
On August 20, 2021 we are releasing The Color Of US Suite (Criss 1407) by Donald Edwards.
Timing is everything, and as Donald Edwards continues to make recordings, we are able to hear the clarity of his development as a composer and artist. This recording The Color Of US Suite carries with it the total range in expressions of the freedom concept, the obsession with hope through the infatuation of dreams - the disappointment, anger, and love for the framing of our evolving paradigm from within the prism of democracy. Donald captures those gradations of condition in a high-minded representation of passion, delivered with high-skilled precision, and soulful highs that are as exciting to the gutbucket enthusiast as it is intriguing for the high-brow aficionado.
The Color Of US Suite signifies the idealism of being in pursuit, eye on the prize, and evince a passion for study, discipline and integrity required to handle this music’s greatest demands. Donald Edwards and fellow musicians Anthony Wonsey, Ben Wolfe, David Gilmore and Abraham Burton have succeeded, and we are edified all the more higher for them having done so.
Vinyl release of Criss Cross Jazz on Record Store Day 2021
On July 17, 2021 (Record Store Day) Criss Cross Jazz partner Elemental Music will release a limited-edition vinyl version of the seminal 1994 Criss Cross Jazz album Consenting Adults (Criss 1177) by the collective quintet M.T.B.
Recorded in New York City the day after Christmas in 1994 Consenting Adults provides a snapshot of five elite young improvisers -- pianist Brad Mehldau, tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, guitarist Peter Bernstein, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Leon Parker -- at the start of their career.
In the future Elemental Music will release more classic Criss Cross Jazz albums on vinyl, under license from Criss Cross Jazz.
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Criss Cross Jazz voted 24th in All About Jazz 2020 Jazz Top Record Labels
Leading jazz website All About Jazz published the Winners Of The 2020 All About Jazz Top Jazz Record Labels reader's poll on January 4, 2021. Criss Cross Jazz ended in a respectable 24th position in the top 50 list of this poll.
We want to thank the readers of All About Jazz for their votes for and confidence in the label.
We are working hard to make most of the 400+ albums in our catalog available again, so if you've missed some CD in the past, be sure to check again!
We have also started working on new releases. And last but not least, multiple titles will be reissued on vinyl in 2021.
Lage Lund wins Rising Star - Guitar award in 68th Annual Down Beat Critics Poll
Criss Cross Jazz congratulates Lage Lund with his win in the category Rising Star - Guitar of the 68th Annual Down Beat Critics Poll. Complete results of this year's election can be found in the August 2020 issue of Downbeat Magazine.
On February 15, 2019 we released Terrible Animals (Criss 1402) by Lage Lund, his fifth album as a leader for Criss Cross Jazz.
Lage Lund recorded his first album Early Songs ((Criss 1307) for Criss Cross Jazz in 2007. After that he followed on over the years with Unlikely Stories (Criss 1321), Foolhardy (Criss 1360), Idlewild (Criss 1376) and the already mentioned Terrible Animals (Criss 1402).
June 2020 new release
On June 2, 2020 we are releasing From Here To Here (Criss 1405) by David Gilmore.
This release is a tribute to my father and our grandpa Gerry Teekens Sr, founder of Criss Cross Jazz who passed away October 31, 2019.
Jerry Teekens Jr, Bo Teekens, Amber Teekens.
The notion that nothing spurs the creative process like a deadline fully matches the back story of David Gilmore’s second album for Criss Cross, on which the 54-year-old guitar master navigates eight never-recorded compositions of both recent and older vintage, and a pair of well-wrought covers.
May 2019 new release
On May 6, 2019 After Life (Criss 1404) by Noah Preminger has been released.
In his program notes to his second Criss Cross album, After Life master tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger writes that, as per the title, the seven original songs on the date "pertain to a world that we may inhabit when we leave Earth."
February 2019 new releases
On February 15, 2019 Terrible Animals (Criss 1402) by Lage Lund and Ganymede (Criss 1403) by Matt Brewer have been released.
Terrible Animals is perhaps the most compositionally ambitious and daringly performed of Lage Lund's five albums on Criss Cross.
Matt Brewer's third Criss Cross leader album, Ganymede, follows a pair of inspired ensemble recordings (Mythology. Criss 1373; Unspoken, Criss 1390), for which the master bassist convened some of the most accomplished individualists of 21st century jazz to interpret original music that showcased Brewer's sophisticated compositional skills, lyric gifts, and state of the art chops.
Earlier releases
For information on earlier releases, directly turn to:
- October 2018 release
- May 2018 releases
- February 2018 releases
- October 2017 release
- May 2017 releases
- February 2017 releases
- September 2016 releases
- May 2016 releases
- February 2016 releases
- September 2015 releases
- May 2015 releases
- February 2015 releases
or check the complete Criss Cross Jazz Release Index.
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- Last updated on Apr 26, 2024