Jazz Articles about Bill O'Connell

Bill O'Connell: Live In Montauk

by Richard J Salvucci
August 19, 2023

A rhythm section which includes Santi Debriano and Billy Hart is nothing if not part of a potential dream band. In Craig Handy, one finds a post-bop saxophonist who played with virtually everyone worth hearing over the last third of the twentieth century. For a variety of reasons pianist Bill O'Connell may be a little less well known outside the jny:New York City metropolitan area, but his signal contributions to Latin jazz with Dave Valentin, Jerry Gonzalez and Mongo Santamaria ...

Bill O'Connell: Live In Montauk

by Jack Bowers
August 17, 2023

After years of gigging in the New York City area, while honing his credentials as a first-call contemporary jazz pianist, Bill O'Connell and his family moved to Montauk, the easternmost point on Long Island, where he expressed his appreciation of the area's many wonders by recording this impressive album at the celebrated Gosman's Dock, during the annual Hamptons Jazz Festival in August 2021. It is essentially a quartet date with trumpeter Randy Brecker sitting in on two numbers, ...

Highlights from the 20th Annual Five Points Jazz Festival

by Steven Roby
July 28, 2023

Andrea Brachfeld & Insight: Evolution

by Jack Bowers
June 30, 2022

Although Andrea Brachfeld's may not be a household name, the versatile flutist and composer has been a well-established and respected presence on New York City's jazz and Afro-Cuban scenes since around 1970. On Evolution, her tenth recording as leader, Brachfeld delves musically into children's issues “and the ongoing need [for] basic necessities even in the best of times," using her time for reflection during the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020-21 to find focus and creativity from the ways in which children ...

Andrea Brachfeld: Evolution

by Jane Kozhevnikova
June 10, 2022

Andrea Brachfeld is a critically acclaimed flutist, composer and educator. She has won multiple awards, including a grant from Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and was once recognized as the best jazz flutist by Hot House magazine. Evolution features Brachfeld's longtime collaborators Bill O'Connell (piano), Harvie S (bass) and Jason Tiemann (drums). While Brachfeld's previous album, Brazilian Whispers (Origin Records, 2020), focused solely on a Brazilian music sound palette, in Evolution she brings listeners ...

Bill O'Connell: A Change Is Gonna Come

by Jack Bowers
February 28, 2022

Pianist Bill O'Connell, who has been at the top of his game for more than four decades with no signs of slowing down, says each of his albums is a snapshot of how he is feeling at a particular time in his life. A Change Is Gonna Come expresses O'Connell's frame of mind after enduring more than two years of the Coronavirus pandemic. By and large, the mood is optimistic, underscoring his belief that the worst of the pandemic could ...

Santi Debriano: Flash of the Spirit

by Paul Rauch
January 15, 2021

Bassist/composer Santi Debriano has been prominently on the scene since the late seventies, when he worked for several years with saxophonist Archie Shepp. Born in Panama, and raised in Brooklyn from a very young age, his life was integrated with the many crosscurrents of jazz music in the Americas. He worked prominently with Sam Rivers in Paris for a few years, before heading back to New York to perform with the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Fortune, Larry Coryell, Freddie ...