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Below, you'll find a compilation of all album reviews done by local KIOS jazz and blues staff.

Last Call Review: Cosmic Vibrations/Pathways and Passages/Spirit Muse Records

Released late last year, the debut of Cosmic Vibrations featuring the acclaimed jazz vocalist Dwight Trible on "Pathways & Passages" is an experience not to miss. The band assembled for the first time in August, 2017 in Los Angeles . Performing to appreciative audiences, the hypnotic combination of woodwinds, strings, percussion and one very remarkable voice is one of the finest spiritual jazz bands to arrive on the scene.   

Afer a remarkable opener, "Nature's Vision", a genre defying song of world music taken to a completely different level,  a cover of "Blue Skies"is presented. It's unlike any previous performance of the 1926 Irvin Berlin ever recorded. The immense spiritual and show-stopping power of vocalist Dwight Trible, along with his ensemble, lifts a song which is standard jazz fare into an experience of the ineffable.

Certainly one of the highlights of the date is "Motherless Child". Featuring  John B. Williams bass and guest Scott Fraser's lap steel guitar, in addition to Trible's deeply felt vocals the classic number is given a deep soulful reading that is impossible to resist.

Dwight Trible is a highly regarded spiritual jazz vocalist who has directed the legendary Horace Tapscott Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, and has worked with Gary Bartz, Kamasi Washington, Kahil El’Zabar, Charles Lloyd and many others. With a series of very compelling previous recordings, this Trible's finest yet. He easily channels the sacred presence with similar ease and authority as fellow vocalists Leon Thomas and Andy Bey, and saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders(with whom he was worked with) in addition to legends John Coltrane and Albert Ayler.

With eleven remarkable selections to enjoy, the record closes on "Some Other Time", after taking the listener into a Sun-Ra like trip through the cosmos. It is also most certainly a healing experience of music, something needed after an unprecedented year of global pandemic and uncertain times.

Personnel:
Dwight Trible - voice / kalimba
John B Williams - acoustic bass
Derf Reklaw - congas / percussion / flute
Pablo Calogero - tenor sax / bass clarinet / woodwinds / flutes
Christopher Garcia - indigenous percussion
Breeze Smith -drums / percussion / loops

Special guests:
Scott Fraser - lap steel guitar
Tony Green - upright bass / cello

 

Chris Cooke has been a voice on public radio in Omaha since 1989. Working at KVNO-FM during college, Cooke hosted a weekend progressive jazz show on the station in addition to working as an on-air announcer. In November 1992, Cooke signed on at KIOS-FM and has been there ever since. He has hosted the Tuesday and Thursday editions of Jazz in the Afternoon since 1996 and has hosted Last Call since that year. A long time fan of jazz music, Cooke enjoys talking with the musicians who make jazz music and presenting those conversations with listeners. When not hosting or listening to jazz, on record or in person, Cooke maintains a busy schedule as a self-employed web design consultant.
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