Reviews

Cerulean Blue

I had not heard of either Wolff or Klein, but they are fully-accomplished soloists and fine team play­ers, stay­ing out of each other’s way when nec­es­sary and oper­at­ing as a cohe­sive duo, mutu­ally sup­port­ing one another. Although both of them play their respec­tive key­boards with great facil­ity, they resist the temp­ta­tion to over­whelm the lis­tener with strings of rapid-fire notes, or, para­dox­i­cally, to mean­der, cre­at­ing washes of sound with­out much rhyth­mic motion. They can pro­pel the music (Barron’s “Voy­age”) or muse (Klein’s “In a Grain of Sand”) with equal facil­ity and effect. It’s a reward­ing debut CD by two artists who have their own iden­ti­ties, but merge into this thought­ful duo.
— Michael Stein­man, Cadence Magazine

It’s a gem. Beau­ti­fully played and recorded. (Laura Klein) has got so much aware­ness and sen­si­tiv­ity in her comp­ing, and her solos are really say­ing some­thing.
— Bud Span­gler, drummer/jazz radio personality/producer

All the virtues of the jazz duo are heard on Cerulean Blue. Here, we have pianist Laura Klein and vibra­phon­ist Ted Wolff together, cre­at­ing an emi­nently lis­ten­able record­ing. It is obvi­ous they have played together many times lis­ten­ing to them antic­i­pate and flesh out each other’s ideas. …Extremely tal­ented, Klein is both a per­former and com­poser… Some high­lights include the title track writ­ten by Klein. After a slow pen­sive open­ing, the two get down into a bluesy mood accen­tu­ated by Klein’s hint of stride, while Wolfe’s light and breezy “Peau Douce” par­tic­u­larly shows off their inter­play… This is the duo’s first record date, but, with this achieve­ment, there should cer­tainly be more.
— Larry Tay­lor, JazzReview.com

 

Five­Play Jazz Quintet

This San Fran­cisco area five­some has appar­ently played together for quite a period of time, but this is their debut record­ing, and a real sparkler it is! The 10 orig­i­nal tunes are almost all cre­ations of either the group’s gui­tarist, Tony Cor­man, or its pianist, Laura Klein. The first tune, for exam­ple, is the aptly titled “Off the Ground,” a hard bop­ping yet lyri­cal vehi­cle fea­tur­ing a Klein piano solo with major league chops.
— George Fendel, Jazz Soci­ety of Oregon

Five­Play Jazz Quin­tet with Laura Klein and Tony Cor­man in the ranks is won­der­ful and a wel­come addi­tion to my playlists!
— Peter Kuller, Radio Ade­laide, Australia

I’m blown away. These cats can really play! Led by gui­tarist Tony Cor­man and his pianist wife Laura Klein – who write the major­ity of the mate­r­ial, the band also con­sists of a fine rhythm sec­tion whose tight inter­play is an impor­tant com­po­nent of the group…This music is so vibrant and fun that I hes­i­tate to try to describe the songs lest I dimin­ish the many qual­i­ties I enjoy. But let me say that as good as the play­ing is – and these play­ers are all very good – the song­writ­ing is equally enjoyable…love Klein’s piano work here and through­out – she is a real gem. Highly rec­om­mended.
— www.jazzchicago.net

The music on the Five­Play CD is excel­lent and so are the play­ers…  It is really hard to pick favorites and leave out so much music and musi­cian­ship… And Laura, what can I say. Every­one is so COOL.
— Plas John­son, sax­o­phone titan

Excel­lent all-around jazz from this Bay Area band… 10 all-original com­po­si­tions played with just the kind of vibrancy that will attract the ears of jazz vet­er­ans as well as new­bies. Crisp record­ing and high-energy tal­ent from Tony Corman’s gui­tar, Laura Klein’s piano (I first reviewed her won­der­ful key­boards in issue # 100)… a must-have for your col­lec­tion! If you haven’t heard them before, you’ll be might­ily impressed (as was I), and will make sure you fol­low their release sched­ule to get every­thing they play. Hav­ing my own play­ing roots in boo­gie, it only took 2 or 3 bars for me to fall (like, totally, man) in love (it’s my absolute favorite on the album) with “He’e’s Boo­gie”, a Klein com­po­si­tion that sim­ply COOKS! This is one of the best quin­tets I’ve lis­tened to this year, and they get an unequiv­o­cal MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, with an “EQ” (energy quo­tient) rat­ing of 4.97. They also get the “PICK” of this issue for “best new jazz sound”!
— Dick Met­calf, Improvi­jaz­za­tion Nation