Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab and Guinea’s Authenticite Movement Show Their Roots
Sterns Music's lovingly put-together compilations of work by stars of Francophone West African music's “belle époque“--the decade and a half accompanying and immediately following the independence years of the 1960s--are now digging further into history with releases featuring more obscure, but just as entrancing, figures from that era.
For different reasons, Senegalese singer and songwriter Ablaye ...
Take Five With Mike Lorenz
Meet Mike Lorenz:
Mike Lorenz, guitarist/composer/bandleader, is an up-and- coming musician from Philadelphia, PA. He leads an original jazz quartet, the Mike Lorenz Quartet, which features some of the most in-demand musicians in the Philadelphia area as well as its surrounding areas.
Instrument(s):
Guitar.
I knew I wanted to be a musician ...
Tim Berne: Snakeoil
Tim Berne
Snakeoil
ECM Records
2012
When artists who've already built lengthy careers elsewhere over a period of years (sometimes decades) come to record for Germany's ECM Records, there is occasional trepidation amongst some of their longstanding fans. This is, after all, not just about facilitating the release of recordings; this is a ...
Take Five With John Raymond
Meet John Raymond:
“A dynamic and soulful musician, both as a trumpet player and a composer. John Raymond uses his knowledge of the jazz tradition to forge a style that honors the masters of our music as well as being creative, unpredictable and compelling. John has a unique voice, and he is definitely saying ...
Julius Hemphill / Peter Kowald: Live at Kassiopeia
Julius Hemphill / Peter Kowald
Live at Kassiopeia
No Business Records
2011
Out of the blue comes this double disc set featuring two distinguished alumni, both sadly now departed, of two parallel streams of musical pioneering. German bassist Peter Kowald was one of the authors of European free improvisation. Though initially in the ...
John Geggie / Ron Miles / David Occhipinti: Ottawa, Canada, January 14, 2012
John Geggie / Ron Miles / David Occhipinti
Geggie Concert Series
NAC Fourth Stage, Ottawa, Canada
January 14, 2012
For his first concert of 2012, bassist John Geggie reaffirmed the astute ability to bring together musicians in unheard-of configurations that's made his longstanding Geggie Concert Series an Ottawa institution. Despite living in a ...
Ahmad Jamal
In February 2010, at the well seasoned age of 80, pianist Ahmad Jamal released A Quiet Time on Dreyfus Records. It is an album many observers regard as up there in the stratosphere along with such landmark Jamal discs as Chicago Revisited (Telarc, 1992) or A L'Olympia (Dreyfus, 1996), to name just two of many--or even ...
Ahmad Jamal: Blue Moon
Ahmad Jamal
Blue Moon
Jazz Village
2012
It is tempting to say that, at age 82, Ahmad Jamal carries on getting better and better, but that would be to miss the point. The pianist long ago reached a level of perfection from which it is simply not possible to get better. It is ...
Terell Stafford: Trial and Inspiration
Terell Stafford is as likely to credit his influences as he is to impress his listeners. Coming to jazz comparatively later than many players, and even with his busy schedule as a sideman, leader and educator, he remains devoted to exploring the music's roots, while expressing a relentless desire to learn more.
Stafford first started playing ...
Josh Arcoleo: Beginnings
Josh Arcoleo
Beginnings
Edition Records
2012
Over the decades since Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young were making their reputations, forging in their wake two very different paradigms for the tenor saxophone, the instrument's players have acquired something of the aura of the gunslingers of the American Frontier. Other instruments lend themselves to compare-and-contrast, ...
Mark Miller: Way Down That Lonesome Road - Lonnie Johnson in Toronto 1965-1970
Way Down That Lonesome Road: Lonnie Johnson in Toronto 1965-1970
Mark Miller
Paper; 160 pages
ISBN 978-1-55128-148-3
The Mercury Press
2011
The life of singer and guitarist Lonnie Johnson has been chronicled well enough for a blues performer. But leave it to Mark Miller to find an adjunct that adds a ...
Take Five With Dave Bryant
Meet Dave Bryant:
Keyboardist and composer, Dave Bryant is best known for his work as a member of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time group. Bryant's addition to the group marked Coleman's first extended work with a keyboard instrument in decades.
Instrument(s):
Keyboards.
Teachers and/or influences?
I went through a lot of ...
Peloton: Helsinki, Finland, January 8, 2012
Peloton
The Cable Factory
Helsinki, Finland
November 2011--January 2012
January 8, 2012
Many a gigging musician has spent lengthy formative hours in an opera house pit, a symphony orchestra stand or, in this case, under the modern equivalent of a big top. With contemporary circus entertainment more compact--even low key ...
Take Five With Al Scott
Meet Al Scott:
Al Scott has been playing the piano for over 10 years, and first became influenced by the music of Michael Jackson. It must have been the Quincy Jones element that influenced him. Although his main passion is for jazz music, Al has done session work for various producers, and featured live ...
