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Jazz Articles about Sylvie Courvoisier

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Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier: Chimaera

Read "Chimaera" reviewed by John Sharpe


Even though pianist Sylvie Courvoisier has bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen on hand for Chimaera, the six-piece band is a long way from being merely the storied threesome, which made Double Windsor (Tzadik, 2014), D'Agala (Intakt, 2018) and Free Hoops (Intakt, 2020), plus added guests. As she explains in the liners, the music was originally commissioned for the 2021 Sons d'Hiver festival in Paris and was inspired by the surreal works of French Symbolist artist ...

16
Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier: Chimaera

Read "Chimaera" reviewed by Troy Dostert


It says something about pianist Sylvie Courvoisier's current profile in creative jazz that she could assemble such a distinguished ensemble for her latest release, Chimaera. Augmenting her usual trio of bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen are trumpeters Wadada Leo Smith and Nate Wooley, and with the always interesting Christian Fennesz completing the group on guitar and electronics, one would expect extraordinary results. And so they are--worthy of a lengthy, two-CD treatment, in fact. Courvoisier's work with ...

13
Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier / Cory Smythe: The Rite of Spring: Spectre d’un songe

Read "The Rite of Spring: Spectre d’un songe" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Two daring jazz improvisers take on a cherished hundred-year-old classical ballet masterpiece with radical roots on The Rite of Spring: Spectre d'un songe. Igor Stravinsky was fresh off the success of his 1911 “Petrushka," which radiated with the artistic atmosphere of his Russia, when in 1913 he premiered “The Rite of Spring" at the opening of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. The audience was divided into the Parisian elite in the boxes and the “bohemian" aesthetes scattered about the theater. Stravinsky's ...

1
Radio & Podcasts

Solos & Duets: Dave Rimpus, Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson, Mingus and more

Read "Solos & Duets: Dave Rimpus, Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson, Mingus and more" reviewed by David Brown


In a duo performance, musicians become instrumental equals. The interchange of ideas and flow of music is like a conversation. And for the artist who performs solo, there is no place to hide. Today, we present a smorgasbord of solo and duo performances from Coleman Hawkins to Colin Stetson, Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson to Duke Ellington and Jimmy Blanton, Art Tatum to Satoko Fujii, Peter Brotzmann and Walter Perkins to Bill Evans and Edie Gomez and so many more. ...

4
Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier / Mary Halvorson: Searching for the Disappeared Hour

Read "Searching for the Disappeared Hour" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Here pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson come together for the second time on record in a set of amorphous, ever-changing music that combines their two distinctive approaches into something unique. The musicians' individual sounds are very complimentary as Halvorson's strums and swoops interlock tightly with Courvoisier's precise notes. Together they show a friskiness not often heard in their individual work. Their playing has a dreamy, disoriented surface that sounds like other-dimensional cocktail music and often embeds ...

14
Extended Analysis

Brass And Ivory Tales

Read "Brass And Ivory Tales" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Innovative saxophonist Ivo Perelman celebrates his 60th birthday with the release of a magnum opus, Brass And Ivory Tales. Recorded over a period of seven years, this nine-volume box set is impressive in both its depth and breath as it matches Perelman with a different piano master per disc. The improvised duets are usually the first documented meeting between the two musicians and the instant and rapidly evolving synergy is fresh and thrilling. Both remarkable and expected is Perelman's ability ...

12
Album Review

Ivo Perelman: Brass And Ivory Tales

Read "Brass And Ivory Tales" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Archeologists and cultural anthropologists theorize early humans had some form of music appreciation. They listened to the sounds wind made as it passed through trees. The breeze sounded different passing through oak than it did fir trees, and the sound was altered whether it was spring or fall. Then there were the bird songs, the first Lennon & McCartneys of the stone age. Early man replicated these melodies, with bones that could be whittled into horns or used to recreate ...


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