New Review Covers Recording Spectrum

If you’re looking for an in-depth guide to what’s happening in the world of recorded jazz, you might want to check out the Jazz Review--a tastefully put together new journal devoted to reviews of jazz and related music CDs and videos.

The November issue of the monthly, which costs $2.75, is the second--it debuted in selected stores last month--and will be available early next week at all Tower stores and a few other venues, including Rhino Records in Westwood and the Birdland West nightclub in Long Beach. The magazine will be available on newsstands nationwide beginning with the January issue, due out Dec. 1.

The 56-page, full-color format review is the brainchild of editor Ken Borgers, former program director of KLON-FM (88.1). “I wanted a magazine that covered music that you could go out and buy, as opposed to, say, live reviews, where, it’s like they gave a party but you weren’t invited,” he said.

Borgers says he plans to cover the recordings of the entire jazz spectrum, from avant-garde to be-bop and blues to New Age. He’s off to a good start. In the November issue, Borgers and his crew--including Billboard magazine columnist Jeff Levenson and KLON music director Helen Borgers, the editor’s sister--discuss 50 CDs and two videos by such artists as Charlie Haden, David Sanborn, Frank Capp, Uncle Festive, Roger Kellaway and Taj Mahal.

Fischer Fan Letter: “Clare-Voyance” is a free two-page newsletter published by Bill Sinclair dedicated to informing friends and fans of the musical activities of pianist-composer-arranger Clare Fischer.

Fischer, a master of the Latin idiom, has played with Cal Tjader and Poncho Sanchez and arranged for Dizzy Gillespie and Prince. Among his better-known compositions are the widely recorded “Morning” and “Pensativa.”

Sinclair, an engineer and keyboardist who says he’s among those who are “totally knocked out by Clare’s music,” plans to publish “four or five times a year.” “Since I’m not charging anything, I don’t feel compelled to meet any deadlines,” he quipped. To get on the mailing list, write Sinclair at P.O. Box 2665, El Segundo, Calif. 90245.

Critic’s Choice: Trumpeter Marlon Jordan explored a few too many styles on his Columbia Records debut, “Learson’s Return,” released last spring. But his appearance with the group Jazz Futures at Hollywood Bowl in June revealed a modern mainstream artist intent on musical growth. There, as part of the Playboy Jazz Festival, his conception was much more succinct as he employed a full, gleaming tone to attack, creating a dynamic sense of rhythmic flow while delivering a series of ear-pleasing melodies. Barely in his 20s, Jordan, whose quintet plays tonight and Saturday at the Vine St. Bar & Grill in Hollywood, seems to be shedding his Miles-to-Wynton influences and discovering his own sound.