Jazz Articles

Lou Grassi: Port Of Call

by John Sharpe
August 23, 2017

German pianist Klaus Treuheit and American drummer Lou Grassi present a further instalment of an irregular collaboration on the limited edition LP Port Of Call. Treuheit may not be familiar to many outside his homeland, but he maintains an active schedule based around European radio stations and has contributed film music for the likes of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. Currently best known as part of the cooperative Nu Band, Grassi has also lead his own Po Band units in the ...

The Lou Grassi Po Band with Marshall Allen: Live At The Knitting Factory Volume 1

by Glenn Astarita
February 22, 2011

Drummer Lou Grassi, with his progressive jazz and improvisational luminaries, slams matters into high gear during this gutsy 2000 recording, captured at New York City's Knitting Factory. Historically, Grassi is known for his driving passion and prominent leadership, while almost always engaging with superior musicians. Here, the frontline musicians lock horns, via intervallic spikes and scorching dialogues. “RePoZest" presents an evolving vista, commencing with introspective musings between trumpeter Paul Smoker's linear phrasings and flautist Marshall Allen's cosmological lines. ...

Lou Grassi: Live at The Guelph Festival, The Dope and The Ghost (Live in Vienna) & Shapes and Shadows

by Marc Medwin
January 6, 2008

Marshall Allen/Lou Grassi Live at The Guelph Festival Cadence Jazz 2007 The Nu Band The Dope and The Ghost (Live in Vienna) Not Two 2007 Martin Speicher/Georg Wolf/Lou Grassi Shapes and Shadows Clean Feed 2007

Lou Grassi is one of the few drummers ...

Marshall Allen / Lou Grassi: Live At The Guelph Festival

by Budd Kopman
January 4, 2008

Marshall Allen and Lou Grassi make quite a duo. On Live At The Guelph Festival, they play unprepared and unrehearsed music which, due to their skill, has a remarkable degree of coherence. Admittedly, this is free or avant-garde jazz, requiring coherence to be understood within that framework. Allen is currently leading the Sun Ra Arkestra, after both Sun Ra (1993) and John Gilmore (1995) died, while Grassi has become something of the house percussionist at the CIMP ...

The Nu Band: The Dope And The Ghost

by Mark Corroto
December 3, 2007

Not easily pigeonholed, the music of The Nu Band negotiates the boundaries of free-bop, improvisation, chamber, and traditional jazz with bias toward none. That cannot be said of the band's politics. Giving no quarter to the current Bush administration, they take our 'king' to task from the opening notes of the disc's centerpiece--"BushWhacked.

Saxophonist Mark Whitecage originally recorded BushWhacked: A Spoken Opera (Acoustics ELE, 2005), a Dubya denunciation with his Bi-Coastal Orchestra, a band he leads with ...

Lou Grassi's Po Band: Infinite POtential

by Robert Iannapollo
October 16, 2006

Drummer-for-all-seasons Lou Grassi can do it all. But when left to his own devices with his PO band, he seems to prefer sessions that are mostly improvised. Grassi's latest PO Band project, Infinite POtential (the group's sixth release), finds Grassi and company going back to free improvisation as their MO, with a couple of new members--bassist Adam Lane and bass trombonist David Taylor, both no strangers to the band's methodology. Add two band veterans, trumpeter Herb Robertson and clarinetist Perry ...

Lou Grassi Quartet: Avanti Galoppi

by Germein Linares
April 30, 2005

With over thirty years of dedication to jazz, drummer Lou Grassi should be better known. In the netherworld of jazz, though, and its even darker region of free jazz, no one seems capable of escaping obscurity, a sort of reverse vampire state. Avanti Galoppi brings Grassi closer to the light, closer to the recognition he deserves via the album's seven engaging tunes. Employing the skilled services of Herb Robertson on trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn, Rob Brown on alto saxophone, and ...