All About Jazz Feature Articles
Polar Bear: Raw and Spontaneous
During the six or seven years since its formation, British quintet Polar Bear has garnered extensive praise from critics, fans and fellow musicians. Most famously, perhaps, the band was described by music critic Paul Morley as "dream jazz"--high praise, indeed. The band's second album, Held On The Tips Of Fingers (Babel, 2005), was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. The band has a great reputation as a live act, attracting audience members from the jazz world and beyond. On the eve of the release of its fourth album, Peepers (Leaf Records, 2010), Polar Bear's leader and percussionist, Seb Rochford, and its bassist, Tom Herbert, met at Herbert's house to take part in a telephone interview about the band's development, the creation of Peepers and their plans for the future...
Barry Harris: Setting The Standard On Standards
The Barry Harris Trio Iridium New York, NY February 4, 2010
Barry Harris has been a major force in jazz and jazz education for well over half a century. Now in his 80s, Harris seems to have lost none of his charm, wit, knowledge and skill, as he clearly held the crowd in the palm of his hand during his stay at the Iridium--just north of Times Square in Manhattan. This 75-minute set emphasized well-known songs from yesteryear, and many of the pieces began with gorgeous, rubato solo introductions from Harris...
The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to Elvis and Me
The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to Elvis and Me George Nichopoulos / Rose Clayton Phillips Hardcover; 256 pages ISBN 1595551719 Thomas Nelson 2010
Dr. Conrad Murray, singer Michael Jackson's personal physician, is (in February 2010) under scrutiny for his part in Jackson's October 2009 death, for allegedly providing Jackson with the drugs that contributed to his end. Between 1977 and 1980, Memphis internist Dr. George Nichopoulos found himself in the exact same place as the personal physician of another self-destructive international superstar, singer Elvis Presley. The parallel between the Presley and Jackson deaths close Nichopoulos's The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to Elvis and Me...
Take Five With Frank Macchia
Meet Frank Macchia:
Born and raised in San Francisco, CA., Frank started on the clarinet at the age of ten years old. Soon afterward he began studies on bassoon, saxophone and flute. By the age of fourteen he began studying composition, writing jazz and classical pieces for his high school band and orchestra and for jazz ensembles that rehearsed at the local union hall, including trumpeter Mike Vax's Big Band...
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: A Band in the Vanguard
Not only is this the 75th anniversary of the Village Vanguard, this month also marks the 44th anniversary of the Monday night residency of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra (VJO), begun in 1966 as the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Those Monday nights are a very significant part of the Vanguard's legacy as THE premier jazz club in history...
Harris Eisenstadt
One normally thinks of the drummer-bandleader chair in this music as easily given to a mentality that embraces "more is more." Whether bombastic or just plain full, drummers' bands often focus on mass, rhythm and time. In the post-free arena, leaders like Gerry Hemingway, John Hollenbeck and Harris Eisenstadt have learned not only that every instrument can be a drum, but that the drum can be every instrument and that the drummer's role in creative music is as guide, follower, accent and architect...
Take Five With Kathy Sanborn
Meet Kathy Sanborn:
Known for her velvet voice, Kathy Sanborn performs her own original smooth jazz and adult contemporary songs with an elegance that can take your breath away.
A keyboard and pianist, Sanborn composes and produces both jazz instrumentals and vocal tunes. She released her first CD, Peaceful Sounds, to critical acclaim in 2008. Peaceful Sounds, a jazzy-new age blend of philosophical songs, was a best seller on the CD Baby web site...
Svend Asmussen
Svend Asmussen is the last of the great swing violinists who emerged during the '30s. The "Fiddling Viking" turns 94 on Feb. 28th, splitting time between his native Denmark and Sarasota, Florida. Recently the violinist performed at the Second Annual Arbors Records Invitational Jazz Party and released new CDs, one a compilation on Storyville (Rhythm Is Our Business) of his '50s Danish quintet recordings and the other made just last year for Arbors, MakinA Whoopee...and Music!. There is also a DVD on Shanachie (The Extraordinary Life and Music Of A Jazz Legend) that features an extensive interview with him and numerous performances from film and television...
Three Jazz Poems
Dolphy
What I hear is gone, playpens clattering
with rattles like drums, hum of heater on the floor--
I remember this as I tap the tones out of the
bass clarinet bell. I yell, Hell! I can tell
the past that steers the turnstile giving me gate
at the Village Gate or Vanguard, swapping...
Brian Q. Torff -- In Love With Voices: A Jazz Memoir
In Love With Voices: A Jazz Memoir Brian Torff Softcover; 236 pages ISBN: 1440112851 iUniverse 2009
Brian Torff is a widely experienced jazz bassist who has recorded and played with numerous greats, including violinist Stephane Grappelli, clarinetist Benny Goodman, singers Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme, and pianists George Shearing, Marian McPartland, Mary Lou Williams and Erroll Garner. He has also recorded as a leader and is active in jazz education. His divorce from his wife of 26 years led him in 2008 to move to Paris to focus upon writing his memoir. He has now returned to the US...
Piano and Saxophone Duets: Untying The Standard, A Memory Of Vienna and Live ...
Joel Press and Kyle Aho Untying The Standard Cadence Jazz Records 2008 Joel Press and Kyle Aho Ran Blake and Anthony Braxton A Memory of Vienna hatOLOGY Records 2009 Charles Evans and Neil Shah Live at Saint Stephens Hot Cup Records 2009
Whittled down to twin instrumental poles, there can be a temptation to fill the yawning gaps between. However the best duets are those which take the less traveled path, taut without undue rhetoric, the route taken by these three saxophone and piano twosomes...
Craig Taborn: A Study in Contrasts
Jonathon Haffner Life On Wednesday Cachuma Records 2009 Lotte Anker Floating Islands ILK 2009
Craig Taborn's seemingly innocuous musings have a way of sneaking up on you, revealing, upon closer listening, surprising density and intensity; two recent releases feature the empathetic yet independent keyboardist's complex musical mien...
Two to Tango: Bien Sur and Rollo Coaster
Emilio Solla Bien Sur Fresh Sound-World Jazz 2009 Chris Cheek/Victor Prieto Rollo Coaster self-published 2009
The Argentinean tango has formed a strong connection with jazz not unlike the Brazilian samba and bossa nova. As developed by Astor Piazzolla and those who came after him, classical tango has been widened to include the Folklorico of Argentina...
Dreyfus Tributes to Django Reinhardt
Various Artists Generation Django Dreyfus Records 2009 Dorado Schmitt Family Dreyfus Records 2009 BirA(C)li LagrA ne Gipsy Trio Dreyfus Records 2009 BirA(C)li LagrA ne/ Sylvain Luc Summertime Dreyfus Records 2009 Rocky Gresset Rocky Gresset Dreyfus Records 2009 Philip Catherine Capbreton Dreyfus Records 2010...
Open Secrets: A Triumvirate of Israeli Guitarists
Gilad Hekselman Words Unspoken LateSet Records 2009 Oren Neiman Frolic and Detour Noyman Music 2009 Yotam Silberstein Next Page Posi-Tone 2009
It's an open secret that Israeli jazz musicians are becoming a force on the New York scene, epitomized by three young guitarists, Gilad Hekselman, Oren Neiman and Yotam Silberstein. Each was born in the Holy Land, plays a blond Gibson hollowbody and boasts a strong sophomore release...
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All About Jazz CD Reviews
The Red Earth Collective featuring Soothsayers Horns: Red Earth Dub
London's Red Earth Collective and the associated band, Soothsayers, have much in common with New York's Akoya Afrobeat Ensemble. Both aggregations mix Afrobeat, dub and jazz to create a modern urban style. Both have included veteran Jamaican musicians on their albums--Red Earth / Soothsayers featured singers Johnny Clarke and Linval Thompson on its previous disc, One More Reason (Red Earth, 2009), and Akoya featured the great tenor saxophonist Cedric Im Brooks on its most recent set, P.D.P. President Dey Pass (Afrobomb Music, 2008). Both are composed of multi-ethnic musicians with broad age differences. Both have sizeable followings in the communities in which they are based--the Londoners in Brixton, the New Yorkers in Brooklyn...
Christian Wallumrod Ensemble: Fabula Suite Lugano
With The Zoo is Far (ECM, 2007), Norwegian pianist Christian WallumrA d introduced a group that expanded on the unique sonorities of his other, same-titled Christian WallumrA d Ensemble. That other Ensemble--the quartet responsible for A Year From Easter (ECM, 2005), and which gave an equally nuanced performance at Molde Jazz 2009--explored the nexus of improvisation and composition, rooted in traditional Norwegian folk music, and WallumrA d's personal synchronism of contemporary and Baroque classicism. The six-piece Ensemble of The Zoo began a fundamental shift away from improvisation, a migration completed with Fabula Suite Lugano...
Steve Kaldestad: Blow-Up
The continued ignoring of Canadian musicians in "Jazz Central, South of the Border" ought to have been a thing of the past a long time ago. Thankfully Canadian record labels such as Montreal-based Justin Time and Effendi Records, Toronto-based Alma Records, and now Vancouver's wonderful Cellar Live are hopefully fast-changing that. Blow-Up, from saxophonist Steve Kaldestad, recorded live at the Cellar Night Club and released on the club's label, is another exemplary testament to the jazz idiom from a quintet of among Canada's finest...
Tobias Gebb and Unit 7: Free At Last
New York-based drummer Tobias Gebb assembled a stellar cast for Free At Last. The format of Unit 7 follows the instrumentation tradition of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. The three-horn frontline and three-man rhythm section allows this group to sound bigger than it is at times, while also having the flexibility to make things more intimate. Gebb covers plenty of stylistic ground over the course of these eight songs and he wastes no time getting started...
Pablo Menendez and Mezcla: I'll See You In Cuba
Guitarist/vocalist Pablo Menendez makes a two-pronged point with the title of this CD. He alludes to what could happen if visitors from the United States were permitted to travel to Cuba, and adds a slight twist on the Irving Berlin's "I'll See You in C.U.B.A.," which he sings with zest and verve. Menendez brings in a blend of several genres in his schematic vision on I'll See You In Cuba and, along with his band Mezcla, consistently captures and develops it eloquently...
Miles Okazaki: Generations
Generations, Miles Okazaki's second CD, displays the ornate structural latticework and solid foundation of a highly skilled conceptual architect. As a guitarist his tone is taut and balanced across the full range of the instrument, full of rhythmic and melodic nuance. Okazaki also shows thoughtfulness and creativity as a composer and bandleader, assembling a close-knit group of skilled colleagues and providing a conceptual and thematic framework that elicits exquisite contributions from all the players. This music resides at the crossroads of creative expression, rigorous concern for structure, profound expressions of individuality and highly effective group cooperation...
Henry Threadgill: This Brings Us To, Vol. 1
Henry Threadgill's This Brings Us To, Vol. 1 marks the return of the iconoclastic saxophonist/flautist's Zooid ensemble, his primary public performance vehicle for the past decade. The quintet, although having undergone some significant changes since its previous disc, with bass guitarist Stomu Takeishi and multi-instrumentalist Elliot Humberto Kavee replacing cellist/trombonist Dana Leong and drummer Dafnis Prieto, the group remains a cohesive unit with a unified sound, in no small part due to the continued presence of longtime band members, guitarist Liberty Ellman and tuba player Jose Davila, now doubling on trombone...
Will Campbell: Think Tank
Every once in awhile there emerges a record that is brimful with sinewy, simply honest music that reverberates from one song to another and leaves echoes of melodies or twists and turns in the musicians' solos long after the last notes of the record have died down. This is how alto saxophonist Will Campbell's debut as leader, Think Tank, runs the gauntlet in the tough and crowded musical world where post-bop alto saxophonists have been competing ever since Bird left the scene six decades ago...
Robin Verheyen: Starbound
After studying in his native Belgium and in the Netherlands, expatriate saxman Robin Verheyen spent a year at the Manhattan School of Music, where one of his teachers was soprano sax wizard Dave Leibman. Anyone familiar with Leibman's work knows the ex-Miles Davis sideman's musical feet are planted firmly on the ground... although which planet that ground is located on has never been determined. That being said, the astounding music on Starbound proves Verheyen is either a native of that planet, or has visited it a few times, at least...
Flux: Peninsulator
Uniting musicians from several parts of Europe, Copenhagen-based band Flux has the kind of restless cosmopolitan energy that its name seems to suggest. On Peninsulator the group plays its very own brand of postmodern jazz, referencing a wealth of styles from post-bop to classical, rock, and world music, while still being able to forge its own sprawling identity...
John Stein: Raising the Roof
Raising the Roof is a hard-swinging and thoroughly enjoyable album by Boston-based guitarist John Stein. Featuring an all-star quartet, with keyboardist Koichi Sato, bassist John Lockwood and drummer Ze Eduardo Nazario, the group plays together with a sense of cohesion that borders on the realm of ESP. While this level of communication and familiarity is to be expected by world-class jazz musicians such as these, what is surprising is that they were able to play in this fashion with such a quick rehearsal and recording schedule, another testament to their masterful musicality...
Peter Banks: Two Sides of Peter Banks
Pity poor Peter Banks. Unceremoniously ousted from the group he co-founded, on the cusp of greater success, the guitarist went on to relative obscurity after a quick run with Flash, while his band mates in Yes became megastars with hits like "Roundabout" and albums like Close to the Edge (Atlantic, 1972). He may not have possessed the instantaneous charisma and stunning virtuosity of his replacement, Steve Howe, but he was a fine guitarist, as this remastered edition of his solo debut, Two Sides of Peter Banks, amply proves, despite running out of steam half-way through...
Ted Nash: Portrait in Seven Shades
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) is often derided as a bastion of conservatism, although it's not clear what is conservative about an epic like trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' Congo Square (Blue Note, 2007), with its volleys of Ghanaian percussion and ensemble-singing in the Ga and Fante dialects. For that matter, the JLCO accommodates boundary-pushing musicians like Ted Nash, who holds a multi-woodwinds chair while still doing offbeat work with the likes of bassist Ben Allison and pianist Frank Kimbrough--not to mention his own groups, including Odeon and Still Evolved...
Vincent Gardner: Three-Five
The title here refers to both trombonist Vincent Gardner's age and the time signatures (3/4 and 5/4) of the majority of the tracks on this CD. Gardner says the "idea for the date was to try these pieces in a different meter. It's amazing that when you drop a beat and take a tune usually played in 4/4 down to 3/4 its character changes and therefore you respond differently." It's not really that straightforward; Gardner doesn't simply cast pieces in a steady 3/4 or 5/4 like Dave Brubeck or the early hard boppers did, but takes liberties with rhythms within the meters as well as delivering fresh, often intricate arrangements reimagining more familiar tunes. A case in point is his fugue-like recasting of Sonny Rollins' "Valse Hot," dispensing with full rhythm section during the theme and changing up rhythmic emphasis while maintaining the kernel 3/4 during solos...
Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra: The Definitive Thad Jones
Recorded in 1988, over two decades after the creation of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and a decade after Jones left the band, this is also its last recording under Lewis' helm (he died two years later, 20 years ago in February, 2010). As such, it reflects Lewis' concept as well as his and the band's adaptations of Jones' charts. The instrumentation is also different than both the early incarnation and today's Vanguard Jazz Orchestra--the brass including two bass trombones and French horn. The two CDs include two LPs originally done for MusicMasters, the second released after Lewis' death...
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