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Jazz Articles about Dan Chmielinski
Steven Feifke: The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra
by Angelo Leonardi
Metti assieme un talentoso giovane orchestratore come Steven Feifke, un trombettista di prima grandezza come Bijon Watson e una big band con grandi nomi e prestigiosi ospiti e il risultato è scontato. Il debutto della Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra è stato propiziato dalla collaborazione col Jazz Education Network ed ha assunto le vesti di un album includendo in organico ospiti di rilievo come Kurt Elling, Sean Jones e Chad Lefkowitz Brown. Il principale riferimento è la tradizione ...
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by Jack Bowers
The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra, co-led by pianist/composer Steven Feifke and trumpeter par excellence Bijon Watson, is a seventeen-member ensemble comprising seasoned players paired with young lions who are poised to capture pride of place. Nowhere do the leaders say who is in which group, and it would be impolitic to name them here. Suffice to say that some of the names may be more familiar than others--as, for example, trombonist John Fedchock who cut his teeth with one of ...
read moreSteven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic
by Jack Bowers
Jazz connoisseurs who lean toward big bands that swing as earnestly and often as the renowned architects of the epic big-band era should find plenty to cheer about on Kinetic, the debut recording by New York-based pianist, composer and arranger Steven Feifke's audacious and fiery ensemble. This is a band that fires on all cylindersbut it couldn't even leave the garage unless Feifke supplied the fuel. With one exception (noted below), Feifke's intense and high-powered charts neatly pave the way, ...
read moreSteven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic
by Angelo Leonardi
Assimilare la tradizione per poi creare cose originali. È questo il percorso che hanno seguito e continuano a seguire i musicisti jazz, in forme e approfondimenti diversi. A 30 anni esatti il pianista Steven Feifke è ancora al primo passo ma in questo scintillante debutto orchestrale dimostra di avere tutte le carte in regola per sviluppare percorsi originali. Kinetic è infatti un esempio del miglior modern mainstream orchestrale, elaborato sulle lezioni di Thad Jones e Mel Lewis, ...
read moreChad Lefkowitz-Brown: Quartet Sessions
by Jack Bowers
The Quartet Sessions (there are two of them) mark the eighth recording as leader by New York-based tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, an heir-apparent to an acclaimed dynasty of hard-boppers whose monarchs include Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Gene Ammons, Charlie Rouse, Hank Mobley, Sonny Rollins and their peers, and embraces such contemporaries as Eric Alexander, Don Menza and Josh Redman, among others. In fact, it's hard to listen to Lefkowitz-Brown (or Chad LB, as he is often called), especially on the ...
read moreEvgeny Sivtsov: Zoo
by Alberto Bazzurro
Ci sono reminiscenze di molto pianismo jazz, quello dell'albero maestro, ma anche qualche inflessione classicheggiante (moderata, invero), probabile frutto delle sue origini, nell'approccio che il giovane pianista russo Evgeny Sivtsov evidenzia in questo suo lavoro, inciso nel novembre 2017 ai Tedesco Studios, New Jersey, ma missato e masterizzato in quel di Mosca. C'è molta padronanza lessicale, come si diceva, brillantezza (senza esagerare) e totale regolarità di approccio, ma proprio questa eccessiva regolarità, questo inappuntabile rispetto delle regole ...
read moreEvgeny Sivtsov: Zoo
by Don Phipps
On Zoo, composer and pianist Evgeny Sivtsov reimagines and contrasts jazz styles in a clever and skillful manner. Sivtsov sounds like a cross between Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, or even Lennie Tristanonot just in his technique, but in his attack as well. This makes for piano playing that, depending upon the number, is at times robust or subdued, but always steeped in the jazz tradition. On his six original compositions, he's joined by bassist Dan Chmielinski and drummer Shawn Baltazor. ...
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