All About Jazz Feature Articles
Christian Scott: Breaking Boundaries, Crossing Lines
Christian Scott is lounging on a black leather couch, easy and relaxed before taking to the stage at a Moscow jazz club. The cold, gloomy Russian capital hosted the New Orleans trumpeter's quintet for a trio of gigs in February 2009--including a show at the US ambassador's cushy residence, in front of an elite audience of officials and dignitaries...
Eric Hebert -- The Internet For Jazz Musicians
The internet holds enormous potential for jazz musicians. Many of us have little to no idea of how to take advantage of it. We tend to have websites, Facebook and maybe Twitter. How many of us are happy with the results we get from our efforts?
After much searching, I have found evolvor.com. The following interview was conducted with Eric Hebert CEO of Evolvor Media on the subject of maximizing exposure through the internet...
Brad Mehldau: Highway Rider
Brad Mehldau Highway Rider Nonesuch Records 2010
For a pianist who not only demonstrated remarkable promise, but actually began delivering on it at a very early stage in his career with what would ultimately become his five-part Art of the Trio (Warner Bros.) series, Brad Mehldau's side projects have--with the exception of the solo Live in Tokyo (Nonesuch, 2004)--met with mixed reactions. Perhaps it's because of his emergence as one of modern jazz's most distinctive and popular interpreters of both contemporary song and standard material in a trio setting, that placed unfair expectations on seemingly tangential projects like the concept-based Places (Warner Bros, 2000). The unexpected diversion of Largo (Warner Bros., 2002), in particular, was met with some curiosity as, for the first time, Mehldau expanded into larger musical environs--electrified territories, even--with acclaimed producer/multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion (Kanye West, Robyn Hitchcock, Aimee Mann). Highway Rider reunites Mehldau with Brion for an album that's even more ambitious than Largo--and, despite their first collaboration's many strong points, a far more successful one...
Take Five With Matt Stevens
Meet Matt Stevens: Matt Stevens is a musician and composer from North London. An instrumental artist, he uses an acoustic guitar and a sampler to create multi-layered tracks live. This is often called Live Looping. His music is compared with artists as diverse as John McLaughlin and Sigur Ros. He plays live all over the UK. Last year saw the release of Echo, his well received debut album...
Luis Bonilla: I Talking Now
Trombonist, composer, bandleader and professor Luis Bonilla is not a tortured artist. One cannot imagine him careening from one imbalanced extreme of self- reflection to the other or participating in anything particularly self-indulgent, whatsoever. He is a loving husband and a father who seems to inhale and exhale commitment to his two-year-old daughter. The middle son of a Costa Rican father and mother, he grew up in a workingman's home and is a hard working man himself, dedicated to getting the job done professionally and consistently. He is a humorist but not a cynic, able to paint quick, amusing sketches of friends, family and the slices of time that define our daily lives, with both words and notes...
Stan Kenton Alumni Band: Have Band, Will Travel (Live)
Stan Kenton Alumni Band Have Band, Will Travel (Live) Summit Records 2010
For over two decades, trumpeter Mike Vax, a veteran of the 1970-72 Stan Kenton Orchestra, has been a tireless crusader maintaining the legacy of his erstwhile boss, who died at age 67 in 1979. Have Band, Will Travel (Live) is the Stan Kenton Alumni Band's fourth recording for the Summit label. It maintains the ensemble's commitment to Kenton not only through music performed by the original band, but also through modern compositions and arrangements which fit comfortably with the Kenton aesthetic. Audio engineer Tom Johnson has brilliantly captured the sound and spirit of this ensemble in his location recordings...
Carl Fischer and Organic Groove Ensemble: Adverse Times
Carl Fischer and Organic Groove Ensemble Adverse Times Fisch Music 2010
Sometimes it seems that trumpet players get more of the spotlight than other instrument-playing bandleaders. Perhaps it's because of the tremendous legacy emanating from Louis Armstrong's tree. The nature of the trumpet speaks of leadership, bravura and high-wire-no-net playing. Yet it can be an enormous challenge for a trumpeter and bandleader in 2010 to stand out from the burgeoning pack--Wynton Marsalis, Sean Jones, Nicholas Payton and Roy Hargrove, among many, and variegated, others...
Take Five With Dena Blue
Meet Dena Blue: Dena is delighted to sing the popular standards for your special event. She prides herself in learning the treasured favorites made popular by many of the legends of jazz, performed in her beautiful and unique style.
Her soft sultry voice and Houston's top musicians, The BlueJazz Band, will ensure that your event has only the finest sound. The BlueJazz Band is under the direction of the talented and accomplished Paul Chester. He comprises her group of only the "A" list musicians. Currently playing are the amazing Andrew Lienhard on keyboard, outstanding Tim Solook on drums, and remarkable Aric Nitzber on upright bass and Paul Chester will be dazzle you on the guitar. You may add additional instruments upon request for your event...
The Afrobeat Diaries, Part 7 - Knitting Factory rolls out Fela Kuti reissue p...
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
Following the release of its The Best Of The Black President sampler in November 2009, New York's Knitting Factory has cut to the main event in its Fela Kuti reissue program. The label, which is scheduled to release all of Kuti's albums during 2010, put out the first batch of six discs in February. Titled the "Chop 'n' Quench" batch (after the title of an early single), the discs cover the years 1964-74, Afrobeat's formative years. They contain nine albums and a selection of singles...
Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck at Madison Square Garden
Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck Madison Square Garden New York, New York February 19th, 2010
Eric Clapton was the perfect host during his appearance with Jeff Beck February 19th at Madison Square Garden. The man once likened to God could not have been more gracious had he played a more formal role of master of ceremonies. In his deference to Beck, Slowhand seemed intent on giving El Becko, his successor in The Yardbirds back in 1965, a chance to strut his stuff on one of the biggest stages in the world...
Cage
I play the folk song twice once to ring out the singed changes, again in order that
nothing comes between you and me, however the notes pound for release from a cage...
A piece by Cage, you know the one, the 4' 33" of silence no one explains to satisfaction.
The notes--are there any, and, do they come to ground? I have a theory: the absence of theory...
The Harlequin Years
I had been the third dreamer that she had lived with. Immediately preceding me, a 5'3" guitarist whose long hair was almost equal to his height but thinning, since it was taking him so long to "make it" as an established musician and then his friend, from a well to do family but considered incapable of ever running the family business. He was an art dilettante, plucking away at a bass and working menial jobs between allowance checks...
Take Five With Samir Fejzic
Meet Samir Fejzic: Samir Fejzic, composer and pianist, born in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), studied composition at Music Academy in Sarajevo, where he graduated in 1998. Currently he teaches renaissance and baroque counterpoint at Secondary Music School in Sarajevo.
His work is characterized by different influences, a variety of styles and the constant effort of assimilation of classical vocal styles, traditional folk music and contemporary techniques into his compositions under the personal perspective. His interest for vocal music resulted in the writing of the book Vokalni kontrapunkt, which he finished in September 2003 and was published by Svjetlost in Sarajevo...
Matthew Shipp at Cafe Oto, London
Matthew Shipp/Paul Dunmall/John Edwards/Mark Sanders Cafe Oto London February 12, 2010
At first glance the opening night of New York City-based pianist Matthew Shipp's three-day residency at north London's Cafe Oto promised a fire music spectacular. Lined up to appear alongside him were three of the UK's leading improvisors in reedman Paul Dunmall, bassist John Edwards, and drummer Mark Sanders, all of whom are eminently comfortable at the burning pole of the improvised music compass...
Johnny Cash: American VI: Ain't No Grave
Johnny Cash American VI: Ain't No Grave American Recordings 2010
In his tribute to Johnny Cash on the artist's death in 2003, commentator and VH1 Executive Director Bill Flanagan put forth this bit of wisdom on the CBS program Sunday Morning:
"It's becoming more apparent with every year that goes by that the period from the mid-'50s to the mid-'70s was a golden age for popular music. To have lived in the era where Cash and Presley and the Beatles and Stones and Aretha and Dylan and Miles Davis were around is like to have lived in Paris during the time of the impressionists...
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All About Jazz CD Reviews
Moutin Reunion Quartet: Soul Dancers
Despite the reunion now nearly a decade old, there's nothing out of place or out of time about the vibrant Moutin Reunion Quartet. The group--co-led by twin brothers Francois (bass) and Louis (drums) Moutin--has delivered fiery album after fiery album since its 2002 debut, Power Tree (Dreyfus), but it's only been since its third release, Something Like Now (Nocturne, 2005), that the group has settled on the winning line-up of keyboardist Pierre de Bethmann and saxophonist Rick Margitza...
Barb Jungr: The Men I Love: The New American Songbook
A British Edith Piaf is a dead-on description of Barb Jungr. She is more a song stylist than a jazz vocalist but on The Men I Love she mines a new vein of music in the Great American Songbook for alternative interpretation. All the songs, whether originally up-tempo or ballads, are easily spread into a contemporary song cycle of the second half of the 20th century. The tone and mood are accomplished by the spare instrumentation Jungr employs with Frank Schaefer's sleek cello providing the flowing continuo that unites the collection...
Dana Hall: Into The Light
Chicago-based drummer Dana Hall makes his debut as a leader with Into the Light, a provocative quintet recording featuring trumpeter Terell Stafford, saxophonist Tim Warfield, Jr., pianist Bruce Barth, and bassist Rodney Whitaker.
Herbie Hancock's "I Have a Dream" opens the session with an explosive punch. Hall's uncompromising intensity makes clear exactly who is leading the date. Along with Barth's punchy Fender Rhodes comping, the drummer steers the tune through an unpredictable course of shifting grooves with dynamic intensity. Six of the disc's nine tracks are Hall originals and reflect a commitment to strong melodic statements layered on top of well structured harmonic forms. From the hard driving, soulful swing of "Conversion Song" to the breezy waltz of "Orchids" to the techno-inspired groove of the title track, Hall proves himself a capable composer, informed by an array of stylistic influence...
Anders NilssonA s AORTA Ensemble: Anders NilssonA s AORTA Ensemble
Swedish-born, Brooklyn-based guitarist Anders Nilsson unites two of his working ensembles into his dream project. The Swedish, Malmo-based AORTA and the New York-based Fulminate Trio first played together during Kopasetic Productions' KopaFest in Malmo in 2008. Both groups fulfill beautifully Nilsson's vision and create orchestral, open-ended, multidimensional, improvised music that references the great 1970s fusion bands, but with a much broader scope and liberties--and more importantly, free from the genre's notorious clichA(C)s...
Anne Bisson: Blue Mind
When singer-pianist Anne Bisson decided to record her first album, she had planned on giving classical music a jazz approach. However, one day as she was sitting by her piano, the muse descended and inspired her to write "Little Black Lake." She discovered an inner trove of songs that emerged from her heart to fill this CD, with one exception--Steve Hackett's "Hoping Love Will Last...
The Necks: Silverwater
A recent conversation brought up the question why anyone would buy a CD by the Australian trio The Necks. The interlocutor wasn't questioning the quality of the band, merely wondering about listening to them any way other than live. The reason is the same why people read Tennessee Williams plays--appreciating genius outside of the visceral experience...
Dan Weiss: Timshel
Drummer Dan Weiss made a promising trio debut in 2006 with Now Yes When, featuring pianist Jacob Sacks and bassist Thomas Morgan. Timshel, the follow-up, shows an impressive amount of growth for this lineup in the years since. The ideas are bolder, the dynamics more acute, the presentation more evolved. There are few if any pauses between tracks, allowing for a live performance feel without belaboring the idea of a suite. The 12 compositions, all by Weiss, demand close, immersive listening on the part of the band and us as well. The result? A piano trio recording that rivals the depth and power of Vijay Iyer's acclaimed Historicity (ACT, 2009) and shares a bit of its brooding harmonic character and orchestrational oddity...
Antonio Ciacca: Lagos Blues (with Steve Grossman)
There's a good reason most "real" jazz radio stations tend to favor the modern mainstream jazz of the post-bop era codified by such record labels from the mid-20th Century as Blue Note, Columbia's jazz division, Prestige, Riverside and Impulse. It's creative jazz with a comfortingly substantial physicality, clean lines and rhythmic heft still anchored to a swing feel. The excellent Italian jazz pianist Antonio Ciacca is firmly in that modern mainstream, the music here from a quintet, quartet and trio mining the listener's familiarity with what is heard as the standard on jazz radio...
Ralph Lalama: The Audience
A few choice items from the American Popular Songbook, tunes by Wayne Shorter, Duke Pearson, and Stevie Wonder, plus three brief duo improvisations, all rendered in a recognizable mainstream style by a band that includes two primary soloists and a bass and drums team. On the face of it, Ralph Lalama's second Mighty Quinn release appears rather modest relative to the ever expanding, unceasing advance of jazz and improvised music in the 21st Century. Nevertheless, throughout the ten tracks of The Audience the group delivers something as substantial as their forward leaning colleagues. Lalama and his cohorts, who occasionally play gigs in venues outside of New York City, possess the requisite skill and inspiration to pull off a clean, uncluttered, and coherent group sound that is rooted in bebop but indebted to no one...
Luis Bonilla: I Talking Now!
The exuberant, New York-based, trombonist Luis Bonilla has been recording as leader since 1998, when he released Pasos Gigantes ("giant steps") on Candid. I Talking Now! is his fourth album. But he is still probably best known for his work with other artists. Currently a member of trumpeter Dave Douglas' Brass Ecstasy, Bonilla began the 1990s with trumpeter Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy and has since worked with a string of illustrious leaders including pianists McCoy Tyner and Toshiko Akiyoshi, trombonist Willie Colon and singer Astrud Gilberto. Much of his experience is in big, or biggish, bands and he is a member of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and, under the direction of Arturo O'Farrill, the pianist on I Talking Now!, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra...
Tia Fuller: Decisive Steps
Tia Fuller makes strong statements with her solid saxophone and imaginative compositions in Decisive Steps. She surrounds herself here with female musician--drummer Kim Thompson, bassist Miriam Sullivan, and pianist Shamie Royston, who also plays Fender Rhodes. Prominent as well, are male guest stars: bassist Christian McBride, trumpeter Sean Jones, and vibraphonist Warren Wolf...
Royal Hartigan: Blood Drum Spirit
Good things sometimes fly under the radar; sometimes they are great things. This has never been more the case than with Royal Hartigans's Blood Drum Spirit, a jazz masterpiece that has languished in obscurity since its 1993 recording to its eventual 2004 release.
It remains largely unrecognized six years later. Jazz, especially in the US, can be almost religiously hierarchical and introducing an unknown quantity to the ranks of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or Anthony Braxton may well be viewed as profane or pretentious. However, the benefit to fans of good music outweighs the potential backlash. This qualifies as a classic desert island, end of the world as we know it, entry...
Pete Sinfield: Still (Expanded Edition)
He may not have stepped onstage during the early heyday of In the Court of the Crimson King (DGM Live, 1969) through Islands (DGM Live, 1971), but lyricist Pete Sinfield was as much a member of seminal art rock group King Crimson as its performing members. A shot heard around the world, Crimson's debut was a confluence of many factors, unequivocally including Sinfield's flowery and sometimes obliquely analogous prose. When Sinfield left Crimson in 1971, citing irreconcilable differences with the group's remaining cofounder, guitarist Robert Fripp, his career appeared to be over. Instead, Sinfield jumped into production with Roxy Music's eponymous 1972 EG/Island debut, and continued to contribute lyrics to ex- Crimson members Ian McDonald and Michael Giles for McDonald and Giles (Island, 1970), Emerson, Lake and Palmer on Brain Salad Surgery (Atlantic, 1973), and English-language albums by Italian progsters PFM...
John Zorn: Femina
There are two notable elements to this album, before even listening to its contents. One is that composer John Zorn has created a work that pays tribute to female creators (his name checks include Yoko Ono, Agatha Christie and Joan Of Arc). The other is that he's making a return to his fabled file-card system of composition. The Cobra piece was the most notorious, notable and potent manifestation of this technique, where Zorn would prepare musical strategies to be spontaneously displayed in front of his playing cast, prompting immediate action and exacerbated resourcefulness...
Brenda Earle: Songs For A New Day
Brenda Earle has a well-trained, sweet-sounding, pure voice and piano and songwriting skills that are displayed ably in this, her fifth album. The New York-based Canadian native is abetted by Ike Sturm (bass), Jackie Lewis (guitars) and Jared Schonig (drums), as well as guest appearances of one track each by saxophonist Joel Frahm and cellist Lauren Riley-Rigby...
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