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Jazz Articles about Aaron Irwin

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Album Review

Bobby Kapp: Synergy

Read "Synergy" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The subtitle of Synergy is “Bobby Kapp plays the music of Richard Sussman," which is true to some extent. To be more precise, drummer Kapp is at the heart of a septet, conducted by Scott Reeves, that features composer Sussman at the piano. So, while “Bobby Kapp plays" is technically correct, it does not represent the whole picture. What is more, this is a group with a rather unusual front line of violin, clarinet, tenor sax and French ...

3
Album Review

Mike Fahie Jazz Orchestra: Urban(e)

Read "Urban(e)" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


There's a rocky history surrounding jazz-classical hybrids. But, in truth, that has little to do with any potential incompatibility. Instead, it's usually misguided maneuvering and/or an excessive show of dominant traits from one side or the other that mars said unions. When done right a wedding of those worlds can truly birth brilliance. Just listen to Urban(e) for proof. Noted trombonist, composer, arranger and educator Mike Fahie's unabashed love for classical music and jazz is clear and ...

1
Album Review

Mike Fahie Jazz Orchestra: Urban(e)

Read "Urban(e)" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Most Western music, irrespective of its origin and premise, inhabits the same harmonic, chordal and rhythmic universe. So it should not be surprising that classical music, in the hands of a skilled arranger, can be readily recast in a jazz idiom, even one that is housed within a big-band framework. On Urban(e), trombonist Mike Fahie's New York-based Jazz Orchestra braves that challenge, quickening Fahie's translations of works by Frederic Chopin, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Bela Bartok, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and ...

Album Review

Aaron Irwin Quartet: A Room Forever

Read "A Room Forever" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Quartetto dall'approccio molto cameristico questo messo assieme dal clarinettista e compositore statunitense, oggi di stanza a New York. Un camerismo che viene esaltato da un lato dalla formazione, priva di batteria, e dall'altro dalle ispirazioni extramusicali delle composizioni, che fanno riferimento ai racconti dello scrittore statunitense Breece D'J Pancake, morto suicida nel 1979 a soli ventisette anni. Non che le musiche di questo A Room Forever non abbiano un'autonomia rispetto ai racconti di Pancake da cui sono ispirate ...

1
Album Review

Aaron Irwin Quartet: A Room Forever

Read "A Room Forever" reviewed by Budd Kopman


Reedman Aaron Irwin is a very ambitious composer and on his latest, A Room Forever, shows how to plumb emotional depths with subtlety and grace. The inspiration for this music is the short stories by Breece Dexter John Pancake, sometimes written Breece D'J Pancake, the spelling of which comes from a typo in the Atlantic Magazine. Pancake lived to be only twenty- six and died by his own hand; his stories focus on his native West ...

148
Album Review

Vicious World: Plays the Music of Rufus Wainwright

Read "Plays the Music of Rufus Wainwright" reviewed by Andrew J. Sammut


Vicious World might have a field day on its tribute to the music of Rufus Wainwright, except the tunes are rarely that lighthearted. Let's just say the septet is moved to musical tears by the singer/songwriter's earnest melodies and bittersweet harmonies. Even that's putting it mildly. Anxious strings introduce Aaron Irwin's alto sax on the dejected “Going to a Town." “Natasha" pits the innocence of violin and clarinet against Matthew McDonald's bittersweet trombone, choreographing a beautiful, fragile ...

1
Album Review

Aaron Irwin Group: Blood and Thunder

Read "Blood and Thunder" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff


I musicisti coinvolti in questa incisione, in particolar modo gli ormai affermati Chris Cheek e Ben Monder e il meno noto Aaron Irwin, oltre a essere stati lanciati a livello internazionale dalla Fresh Sound/New Talent, vantano con la label catalana una lunga frequentazione testimoniata da numerose incisioni. E’ logico quindi che Blood and Thunder si inserisca a pieno titolo nell’estetica musicale dell’etichetta, da sempre in bilico tra tradizione e innovazione. Solo che in questo caso si è decisamente sbilanciati verso ...


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