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Jazz Articles about John Hollenbeck

Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

Read "Idiom" reviewed by Stefano Merighi


Già da oltre un decennio, la complessità della canadese Anna Webber (sax tenore, flauto, composizione) ci interroga sulla possibilità di compenetrare nel jazz di oggi mente e corpo, attitudine concettuale e abbandono rituale. Non è la prima, ovviamente, a lambire questi territori impervi. Si situa, forse, in una geografia sonora che parte da Cecil Taylor e attraversa le gigantesche ombre di Anthony Braxton e Henry Threadgill. Ma, velocemente, sta atterrando in un pianeta sonoro totalmente proprio, come dimostra questo doppio ...

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Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

Read "Idiom" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Award winning composer, saxophonist and flautist Anna Webber is a restless innovator and musical individualist. Her ninth release as a leader, the sublime and magnificent two-disc Idiom is an ambitious project which Webber pulls off brilliantly and with elegance. Five compositions from the “Idiom" series are represented here. Four are in a sparse trio setting while “Idiom VI," which fills the entire second disc, is with a large ensemble. Another one, “Idiom II," (not included here) appeared on Webber's Clockwise ...

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Album Review

John Hollenbeck: Songs You Like a Lot

Read "Songs You Like a Lot" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Con questo disco John Hollenbeck conclude la trilogia iniziata otto anni fa sulla reinterpretazione di famosi brani della popular music (Songs I Like A Lot, Sunnyside 2013) e proseguita due anni dopo con Songs We Like a Lot per la stessa etichetta. Nel primo album la scelta dei temi era strettamente personale, nel secondo fu condivisa con alcuni partner (i cantanti Theo Bleckmann e Kate McGarry) ed ora nasce dalla selezione di proposte giunte all'arrangiatore dal suo ...

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Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

Read "Idiom" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Is Idiom, from composer, saxophonist, and flutist Anna Webber, new classical music or jazz? Yes. Is the music scored or improvised? Again, yes. Last question: Is it demanding or easy on the ears? Both. On the heels of two stellar releases, the septet Clockwise (Pi Recordings, 2019) and the Webber/Morris Big Band recording Both Are True (Greenleaf Music, 2020), Webber was commissioned to present Idiom VI at John Zorn's Stone series. She expanded the material from one track heard on ...

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Album Review

John Hollenbeck: Songs You Like A Lot

Read "Songs You Like A Lot" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Every ending a beginning, each conclusion an act of creation. If multi-hyphenate John Hollenbeck's Songs You Like A Lot doesn't slot within that sentiment, nothing really does. This collection marks the completion of a lauded trilogy that's stretched out across the better part of a decade, but it also signals the start of something new--the Flexatonic Arts non-profit, which will serve as an umbrella for Hollenbeck's arts and education initiatives, and the record label it houses, acting as a home ...

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Album Review

John Hollenbeck, Alban Darche, Samuel Blaser, Sebastien Boisseau: Mix of Sun and Clouds

Read "Mix of Sun and Clouds" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


La ricca e frammentata scansione ritmica di John Hollenbeck, spesso animata da un'impronta danzante, è un policromo tappeto che interagisce con le parti scritte o gli appassionati interventi di Alban Darche e Samuel Blaser. L'interplay col contrabbassista Sebastien Boisseau finisce di caratterizzare una musica in costante mutazione, che passa da atmosfere d'astratto camerismo a sequenze di magnetica suggestione, capace di rileggere il blues con gli occhi di Julius Hemphill ("Missing Marc Suetterlyn" ) o distendersi liricamente trasfigurando le forme della ...

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Year in Review

Troy Dostert's Best Releases of 2016

Read "Troy Dostert's Best Releases of 2016" reviewed by Troy Dostert


It has been an exciting year for artists perched on the precipice between jazz and other idioms. Each of these releases manages in its own way both to challenge and to inspire the listener, and the stylistic variety on display is an encouraging sign that creative music is truly in good hands! The Claudia Quintet Super Petite (Cuneiform) Another superb collection of songs from John Hollenbeck, brilliantly played by his veteran associates ...


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