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Jazz Articles about Dexter Payne
Dexter Payne: All Things, All Beings
by Chris M. Slawecki
Clarinet, harmonica and saxophonist, composer and bandleader and musical globetrotter Dexter Payne is the type of musician who is most often categorized as difficult to categorize." Profoundly influenced by physical and spiritual journeys through the cultures of America, the Middle East, Africa and Brazil, Payne's recorded output checks off every box from Mississippi delta blues to Brazilian choro to Hindu chant. From a young age, I have been drawn to music that speaks real culture, beginning with the rich musical ...
read moreDexter Payne Quintet: Jazz for All (Jazz Forró)
by Chris M. Slawecki
Dexter Payne plays clarinet with an easy, warm and conversational style. It never sounds like he's pushing or stretching toward the next note, but more like he kind of just lets the next note flow out from this one. On Jazz For All, Payne and his quintet flow through Brazilian choro from a unique, multi-cultured and multicolored perspective: As a mainstay for Thinking Plague and Hamster Theater, accordion player Dave Willey boasts impressive avant-experimental credentials; pianist Victor Mestas Pérez has ...
read moreDexter Payne: Pra Vocé
by Chris M. Slawecki
Pra Vocé is clarinetist Dexter Payne's homage to the late Thiago de Mello, the composer, percussionist and multi-instrumentalist whose life and music reflected the panoramic beauty of his native Brazil and with whom Payne recorded several beautifully reflective pieces of music, including and especially their self-produced 2007 duet Another Feeling (2006, Dexofon). Take time to stroll around and enjoy the beauty of its pathways and gardens, and sit in its contemplative shade, and you'll quickly learn that the quietly brilliant ...
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