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Jazz Articles about Bobby Shew
Markus Gottschlich: Found Sounds
by Jack Bowers
Found Sounds? As it turns out, there is a special story behind that. For four years leading up to this recording, Austrian-born pianist Markus Gottschlich preserved sounds" he heard around the world using a binaural mic and hand-held recording device. He writes that one thing he found was that sounds, more than any other sensory stimulus" sparked his imagination and set his creative juices in motion. He has incorporated a number of those sounds into the nine original compositions on ...
read moreBobby Shew / Bill Mays: Telepathy
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Trumpet and piano duo albums are relatively rare. Louis Armstrong and Earl “Fatha" Hines' Weather Bird" (1928) was a groundbreaker, although a single. Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie (Pablo, 1974) and Clark Terry's One on One (Chesky Records, 1999), where CT played with fourteen different jazz pianists, come to mind. Telepathy, a horn-piano collaboration featuring trumpeter Bobby Shew and pianist Bill Mays, continues the traditionand, brilliantly so. Originally recorded in 1978 and released in 1982, the session is an exploration ...
read moreBobby Shew with the University of Florida Jazz Band: Bobby Shew - Live 1983
by Dan Bilawsky
What once was lost, now is found. Scott Wilson, head of the jazz studies program at the University of Florida, recently discovered this recording of a concert from 1983 that features Bobby Shew as the guest soloist with the University of Florida Jazz Band, then under the direction of Gary Langford. And what a find it is. Shew's creative soloing and stratospheric statements merge seamlessly with this tight band, an outfit that can pack a mean wallop when the music ...
read moreBobby Shew / The Kjell : I Can't Say No
by Jack Bowers
Brilliance can be a blessing or a curse. Some musicians make excellence seem so easy that hardly anyone is surprised by another superlative performance, simply accepting it as a matter of course. As Exhibit A, there’s trumpeter Bobby Shew, who has been around for years, paid his dues in groups both large and small, has a lovely sound, remarkable technique, and seems incapable of fashioning a less-than-rewarding musical experience. In other words, he’s good, so good that his artistry is ...
read moreBobby Shew, Gary Foster and Friends: Play The Music Of Reed Kotler
by Jim Santella
It's a refreshing, straight-ahead quintet that interprets these songs by San Francisco Bay area composer Reed Kotler. All five members of the quintet solo throughout this 2-CD set; but it's the distinctive, front line work of Bobby Shew and Gary Foster that thrills. Shew provided the musical arrangements. As his schedule reveals, the trumpeter is noted for his work all over the world as a brass clinician. Here, on this album, Shew's big bold tone and exciting technique provide adventure. ...
read moreBobby Shew: The Music of John Harmon
by Jack Bowers
Composer / arranger / pianist John Harmon has been associated with Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, for more than forty years as student and educator, and was the first director of the university’s Jazz Studies program. To honor Harmon’s many contributions, the music department brought together the university’s Jazz, Trumpet and Wind Ensembles and Symphony Orchestra to perform Harmon’s music with guest trumpeter Bobby Shew who also takes part in half a dozen duets with Harmon at the piano. Harmon, ...
read moreBobby Shew: Salsa Caliente
by Jack Bowers
It is mildly surprising that Bobby Shew hasn’t recorded until now an album of Latin Jazz. He was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he played the music often as a young man. While his career took him in other directions — to the studios in Los Angeles, the trumpet sections of a number of well–respected big bands, and eventually all over the world as a sought–after solo performer — his love for its fiery melodies and unconventional rhythms never ...
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