Something Else Reviews

Mike Dillon has forged one of the more unique paths in music; as an all-around gifted vibrist/percussionist, he’s led – or been in involved with – music that skirts the fringes of jazz, tossing in music forms from all over the country and all over the world in a carefree manner. His outlandish, fearless attitude is what ties all this together.

Italian pianist Tonino Miano pushes ahead with a forward-looking adaption of jazz that combines parts of established tradition with its exciting, esoteric outskirts. Retaining Miano’s rhythm section of Riccardo Grosso on double bass and Andrea Melani on drums, the Tonino Miano Trio is poised to issue another set of intrepid works.

feature photo: Robert Torres The long, decorated history of jazz pianist, composer and bandleader Kris Davis is still writing compelling new chapters on the book of a restive, creative mind and technical savant. Lost In Geneva (September 25 2026, 4166 Records) promises to be the latest of musical triumphs for Davis because she still attacks each project like she’s got something to prove.

Over a long while, Miles Okazaki has quietly become one of the most ambitious jazz guitarist-composer-bandleaders around. But lately, not so quietly. After a trio of records presenting his acclaimed Trickster quartet, he went bigger with both his concept and his ensembles. Boomtown (PI Recordings) is midway through a trilogy of records whereby Okazaki implements scaled-up musical ideas with a scaled-up band to match.

(feature photo provided by Peter Hum) When the Ottawa Citizen‘s Citizen’s restaurant critic and longtime editor Peter Hum is able to take time to indulge in his love for music making, it’s noteworthy because you better believe he uses his precious time to make the music count. Steps To Redemption (read the review here) is his just-released fourth album in 16 years and once again, he’s assembled the best jazz musicians from all of Canada to render a fresh batch of his compositions.

James Brandon Lewis is now one of the top composers, bandleaders and tenor saxophonists of the world jazz scene, so each new album drop is going to garner load of attention. That certainly applies for his Quartet, which boasts pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Chad Taylor backing Lewis. Well, the James Brandon Lewis Quartet just dropped their latest and it continues the astonishing development of Lewis as an advanced composer.

feature photo: Pete O’Hare The lamentable death of Chicago’s reedist Walter Parazaider marks the end of the band’s incomparable saxophone/trombone/trumpet core, and there’s something about that group’s mix of horns that sounds so appealing to me. But there’s another band from the Midwest who also boast that sax/trombone/trumpet horn section — Dan White, Chris Ott and Jon Lampley, respectively — and they go by the name The Huntertones.

(Click through the new release title for purchase information.) There are concert films, and then there are historical documents. Supertramp’s Crime of the Century: In Concert at Hammersmith Odeon 1975 falls firmly into the latter category. Captured on March 9, 1975, at London’s famed Hammersmith Odeon, this newly restored performance documents the moment when Supertramp transformed from a respected progressive rock outfit into an international phenomenon.

The second act of one of Europe’s most fearless experimental rocks bands of the 70s and early 80s continues, now running much longer than Act One. OM was the band who set out in 1972 to bypass all the dauntless bands dabbling in jazz-rock fusion by bringing rock straight into the free improvisation realm. Now in their seventies, the members of OM seem just as determined as ever to keep making this challenging but ultimately rewarding music.

(Click through the album title for purchasing information.) Born in 1970, Wild Cherry began life as a rock band. Gigging the local circuit, the Ohio group struggled to gain the success they strived for. But then one night, at a show, a fellow in the audience queried why they didn’t play funk music. A light went off. Switching their devotion from rock to funk, Wild Cherry finally found their calling and literally struck platinum.