Extended Analysis

Some artists maintain a busy release schedule, putting out an album a year--sometimes, in the case of musicians like guitarist Bill Frisell, even more frequently--while others, for a variety of reasons, are less prolific. Pianist Edward Simon has, in recent years, been issuing albums with broader distribution under his own name--which automatically discounts 2010's independently released ...

It's difficult to know what is most surprising about Tap: Jon Zorn's Book of Angels | Vol. 20. It's the first collaboration between guitarist Pat Metheny and saxophonist/composer/Tzadik label head John Zorn, two musicians who, at least on the surface, couldn't be more different. Of course, those who look beyond Metheny's more listener-friendly Pat Metheny Group ...

He may be flying somewhat beneath the radar internationally, but in Norway, saxophonist Kjetil Møster has a vibrant career that ranges from the acoustic post-John Coltrane group The Core--whose Office Essentials (Jazzland, 2008) made clear that the American tradition is a touchstone, at least to some, in the country's distinctive jazz scene--to ongoing work with the ...

The most gratifying thing about The Berlin Series no. 1 is that it seems to be the first of many Another Timbre releases featuring musicians based in Berlin. Given the vibrancy of the city's music scene, it has become a magnet for improvising musicians from across the world. As one of them, French sound artist Olivier ...

Norway's Jaga Jazzist has always been difficult to pigeonhole. Despite the word “jazz" in the nonet's moniker, its principle writer, multi-instrumentalist Lars Horntveth, has cited everyone from Steve Reich, Rick Wakeman, Dungen and Spirit to Fela Kuti, King Crimson, MGMT and Air as influences on the group's last studio record, One-Armed Bandit (Ninja Tune, 2010). Horntveth ...

Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt (1811-86) made a career as the consummate concert showoff. He fully learned to be a showoff from fiddler Nicolo Paganini (1782--1840), who, with Liszt, championed the idea of the “Artist as Hero." Previously, it had not been so fashionable for an artist to outshine the composer whose music he or ...

Acclaimed Swedish reed player Fredrik Ljungkvist's key solo outfit is the Yun Kan band. This band, in its incarnation as a quintet, released two remarkable albums, Yun Kan 12345 and Badaling (Caprice, 2004 and 2007) and in recent years operated in a slimmed down version as Yun Kan 3 and as an ambitious outgrowth of the ...

Just as they say about London buses, you wait ages for one to come along and then two arrive at once. Hot on the heels of Bell Trove Spools, comes another John Butcher solo album, Winter Gardens. The main difference between them is that this one is a vinyl LP release rather than a CD. Otherwise, ...

There are four potent musical personalities at play on Songs I Like A Lot. The first is the erstwhile leader, drummer John Hollenbeck, musical raconteur and general high-art roustabout. He has had a long association with vocalist Theo Bleckmann, both in big band settings on A Blessing (Omnitone, 2005) and with Claudia Quintet on What Is ...

The plethora of available live Grateful Dead material might be a completist's delight, but it can make for a nightmare for the consumer who just wants a few really good discs. This was a truly multifaceted band, with every facet documented to the point of exhaustion (or even tedium, depending who you ask). At their rootsy ...

The review of Blackberry Smoke's The Whippoorwill (Southern Ground, 2012) provoked the comment:

“The review sets up a bit of a straw man, since southern rock is alive and well in the hands of bands like the Drive-by Truckers and Jason Isbell...These guys did not come out of a vast wasteland.".

Well, indeed. And speaking of ...

Every once in a while, a record will appear that will change the way to which music is listened, which will expand concept of music and its essence and boundless potential. A record of such importance has the ability to disrupt and shake the space-time continuum of musical history, serving as a signpost to everything that ...

In these modern times, remixing is seen as merely another way of reinterpreting someone's work. Just like jazz or rock artists reworking old standards or classics in their own way, so, too, do remixers apply a modern method of interpreting people's songs, compositions--or, their entire oeuvre. According to Wikipedia “the remix is an alternative version of ...

In a time when leadership roles are being thrust increasingly upon young musicians who may have the chops, the technique and the theory, but not the experience, drummer Paul Motian could be considered a lesson in patience, in waiting for the right time, in holding off for the precise moment of readiness. It's not that Motian ...