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Jazz Articles about Michael Janisch
Patrick Cornelius: Acadia: Way Of The Cairns
by Chris May
No, this is not an ECM album, though, looking at the sleeve art, you would be excused from thinking it was trying to pass itself off as one. Half of the Acadia quartet is indeed European: Estonian-born, German-based pianist Kristjan Randalu and Luxembourg-born, US-based drummer Paul Wiltgen. The other half is American: alto saxophonist Patrick Cornelius and US-born, London-based double bassist Michael Janisch. The music itself is a genuinely transatlantic affair, though the US is the dominant partner: Cornelius' vigorous ...
read moreWhirlwind Recordings: Celebrating 10 years
by Friedrich Kunzmann
This year London-based label Whirlwind Recordings is celebrating its 10th anniversary and looking back at a decade, during the course of which the label has grown to become an important brand in the jazz scene and beyond, with over 140 top-tier albums released under its name so far. The distinguished mark, which Whirlwind has established over the years, is less defined by a certain roster of artists or a specific sound than it is by a great diversity in musical ...
read moreJason Palmer and Cédric Hanriot: City Of Poets
by Roger Farbey
The formal structure of this album recorded live at London's Pizza Express Jazz Club on September 23, 2014, centres around Olivier Messiaen's Seven modes of limited transposition, musical modes or scales that fulfil specific criteria relating to their symmetry and the repetition of their interval groups. As with George Russell's Lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization much has been written about this, so this review will confine itself exclusively to the music. The titles of the nine pieces ...
read moreMichael Janisch: The Whirlwind, Paradigm Shift and London's Label of the Moment
by Phil Barnes
However you look at it Michael Janisch is an extraordinarily driven, highly motivated, success story. Not only has he been the founder, owner and force behind London's wonderful Whirlwind Recordings for the last five years, but he has also just released one of 2015's finest albums in the adventurous 2CD set Paradigm Shift. It's no coincidence that the label takes Janisch's nickname the whirlwind"--at the time of the interview in late October he was two thirds of the way through ...
read moreMichael Janisch: Paradigm Shift
by Roger Farbey
This impressive double album recorded live over two nights in 2011 at Pizza Express Jazz Club, London is Michael Janisch's follow-up to his 2010 debut album Purpose Built. The release has been some four years in gestation for the U.S. born, Berklee educated and now UK-based bassist and composer. Additional post-production electronics and effects were introduced over a period of roughly a year, between 2014 and 2015, yielding an extremely satisfying result. The low groan of looped bass ...
read moreTake Five With Michael Janisch
by Michael Janisch
Meet Michael Janisch:Freelance double & electric bassist, composer, producer, record label owner & bandleader from the USA, resident since 2005 in London, England. Performances with Joe Lovano, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, George Garzone, Dianne Reeves, Shirley Horn, Evan Parker, Gary Husband, Joe Locke, Walter Smith III, Mike Moreno, Jason Palmer, Jon Irabagon, Logan Richardson, Will Vinson, Ingrid Jensen, Patrick Cornelius, Ambrose Akinmusire, etc. Founder and MD of Whirlwind Recordings. Instrument(s): Double and electric basses
read moreMichael Janisch: Purpose Built
by Edward Blanco
A relative newcomer on the international jazz scene, Michael Janisch is an American bassist currently living in London and making his debut recording with the very impressive Purpose Built, a potent selection of eight original composition and four familiar jazz standards. Janisch offers a diverse repertoire of melody-rich, sophisticated charts in a musical palette of essentially modern jazz which--with its improvisational approach, time signatures and many intricate lines throughout--would at first, seem appealing to only the most discerning of jazz ...
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