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About Mike Freeman
Instrument: Vibraphone
Related Articles | Concerts | Albums | Photos | Similar ToMetropolitan Jazz Octet: The Bowie Project
by Paul Reynolds
A tribute to a pop artist by jazz musicians--as with the new David Bowie album by Chicago's Metropolitan Jazz Octet--has to tread a careful line. It obviously won't--can't--be a rote reproduction of the originals, a flaw that sinks many pop-to-pop tributes. Yet it needs to translate the songs into jazz--its harmonic sophistication, especially--in a way that retains the essence of the artist being celebrated. The MJO effort deftly rises to that challenge. This 11-song project should intrigue Bowieists ...
read moreMetropolitan Jazz Octet featuring Paul Marinaro: The Bowie Project
by Neil Tesser
In the words of David Bowie: Changes." The Metropolitan Jazz Octet's two previous albums teem with unadulterated jazz. Paul Marinaro is a hard-swinging, expressive baritone steeped in the Great American Songbook and the jazz tradition. So what in the galaxy are they doing with the music of pop legend--and onetime glam rocker, dancehall king, visual visionary, music man of multiple personae, and cultural icon--David Bowie? Historians might note that Bowie started playing jazz saxophone in his ...
read moreLatin Jazz Roundup: Mike Freeman ZonaVibe, Terceto Kali, Will Jarvis, Livio Almeida, & Sergio Pereira
by Mark Sullivan
A wide variety of recent Latin jazz releases. Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and flamenco influences are all represented. Mike Freeman ZonaVibe Blue Tjade VOF Recordings 2015 Vibraphonist Mike Freeman leads his ZonaVibe group through an exciting program of Latin jazz originals on his sixth album as leader. The title tune acknowledges the great Latin jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader--but he is only one of the forebears referenced. Dance of the Dead" was influenced by a ...
read moreMike Freeman: The Vibesman
by Dan McClenaghan
The sound of the vibraphone glows--a ringing and sustained sonic luminescence. Current masters of the instrument include Gary Burton, Joe Locke, Bobby Hutcherson, and the perhaps lesser-known but also masterful Mike Freeman. With his percussion-soaked group Zonavibe--that includes, besides the vibes, the sounds of marimba, and kalimba, congas, bongos, campana and timbales--Freeman stirs up a multicultural brew of vibrant optimism and Latin and world jazz grooves. Tenor sax and flute, steeped in an organized rhythmic clamor on the ...
read moreMike Freeman: Wiggle Stomp
by Dave Nathan
Mike Freeman's second self-produced album features a program of his compositions. The underlying theme is Latin and Brazilian jazz and calypso. Freeman not only plays the vibes, but the marimba as well, the latter reserved for the calypso music. If the picture on the album is accurate, Freeman uses the four mallets getting a voicing that is more defined and not as resonant as other practitioners of that technique. The musical program is one of contrasts. A pensive, ...
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