Articles by Jeff Schwartz
John McLaughlin: From Miles and Mahavishnu to The 4th Dimension
by Jeff Schwartz
John McLaughlin: From Miles and Mahavishnu to The 4th Dimension Matt Phillips 287 Pages ISBN: # 978-1-5381-7094-6 Rowman and Littlefield 2023 In fall 2023 John McLaughlin led a new edition of his band Shakti on a world tour. Reviews and fan videos caught the eighty- one-year-old McLaughlin playing with the same breathtaking technique and abundant creativity as when he debuted atop the jazz world on Miles Davis' In a Silent Way (Columbia, 1969) ...
read moreMusic Farther Outside by Bill Shoemaker
by Jeff Schwartz
Music Farther Outside: Experimental Music During Brexit and the Pandemic Bill Shoemaker 213 Pages ISBN: #9781538178775 Rowman & Littlefield 2023 Music Farther Outside is a sequel to two books. First, it is Bill Shoemaker's follow-up to his excellent Jazz in the 1970s: Diverging Streams (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). Both are in the tradition of jazz critics such as Nat Hentoff, Martin Williams, Stanley Crouch, Amiri Baraka, and Greg Tate, whose books were mostly ...
read moreMark Dresser: Tines of Change
by Jeff Schwartz
Since his arrival as a member of Anthony Braxton's mid-1980s quartet, Mark Dresser has been expanding the sonic palette of the upright bass. Like Barre Phillips, Barry Guy, and Joëlle Léandre before him, Dresser drew from both the classical avant-garde of players such as Bertram Turetzky and Fernando Grillo and the more intuitive improvisational approaches of Henry Grimes, Alan Silva, William Parker, and others. His solo recordings are important documents of this work; Tines of Change is the latest.
read moreIvo Perelman: Reed Rapture in Brooklyn
by Jeff Schwartz
Is this album fundamentally unreviewable? Are there jazz fans who do not immediately know if they need an 11-hour collection of 103 improvised duets between Ivo Perelman and a dozen saxophonists and clarinetists? It is at least describable. Perelman is faithful to his tenor, while his partners bring examples of nearly every type of saxophone, from soprillo to contrabass, as well as most of the clarinet family. Although all tracks are free improvisations, the default mode is ...
read moreAlex Sadnik: Flight
by Jeff Schwartz
What is new to say through Charlie Parker's music? On Flight Alex Sadnik looks for answers with two different bands. On the first side of the LP, his alto fronts a quintet with violin, pedal steel guitar, bass,and drums, but this is not a Bob Wills or Bill Frisell pastiche. The opening track, “Donna Lee," stretches and compresses Parker's speedy contrafact of “Indiana" into a medium waltz. Both Sadnik's alto tone and the metric liberties taken with ...
read moreDamon Smith, Peter Kowald, Joëlle Léandre & Bertram Turetzky: Bass Duos 2000-2007
by Jeff Schwartz
One function of recordings is to document a performer's development. Damon Smith's Bass Duos 2000-2007 not only captures his artistic and technical evolution, his choice of duet partners represents the expanded options for the bass in creative music since the 1960s. Two of the three discs in this set were previously released, but they have been remastered by Weasel Walter. The unreleased disc is excellent and, as Smith highlights in his liner notes, the combination of these ...
read moreIvo Perelman: Artificial Intelligence
by Jeff Schwartz
Do not be misled by the title: no bots or algorithms were involved in creating this album. While there have been fascinating experiments in improvisation with interactive software by George Lewis, Richard Teitelbaum and others, Artificial Intelligence is just under an hour of spontaneous human interaction by two of the most prolific and uncategorizable improvisers in New York. This is a studio recording of free improvisation, from January 2022. There are no compositions, and if there are ...
read moreSatoko Fujii: Crustal Movement
by Jeff Schwartz
In the first few minutes of “Masoandro Mitsoka," a soft wash of white noise becomes differentiated into piano, percussion, electronics and two trumpets as the acoustic instruments move from breath and friction sounds to identifiably instrumental ones. Next the ensemble reduces to the trumpets, and they move from parallel play to a clear conversation. When piano, percussion and electronics return, they function as a free jazz rhythm section, backing one trumpet, then both, then the other. Instrumental ...
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