Articles by Bridget A. Arnwine
Gary Bartz Is Nobody's Jazz Musician
by Bridget A. Arnwine
Gary Bartz is nobody's jazz musician. What he has built and created as an artist with a career that spans six decades defies labels, especially ones that have storied racist connotations and otherwise derogatory origins like the word jazz. He is a composer of the finest order and as gifted as the most revered names in classical music. Defining his work as improvised music is too simple a term to fully capture the essence of what Bartz and “jazz" musicians ...
Continue ReadingIrving Flores: Armando Mi Conga
by Bridget A. Arnwine
Every now and again an artist releases an album that is so striking, so stellar, that it cements their legacy forever, not in a way that the artist can never grow beyond the album's greatness, but in a way that propels them beyond it. Pianist Irving Flores and his all-star Afro- Cuban Jazz Sextet have created such an album. Armando Mi Conga (Amor de Flores) consists of eight breathtakingly beautiful original compositions plus a bonus track (a solo piano version ...
Continue ReadingChris Greene Quartet: Conversance
by Bridget A. Arnwine
Saxophonist Chris Greene is back. The Evanston, IL native and his group the Chris Greene Quartet--comprising Greene on sax, Marc Piane on bass, Damian Espinosa on piano and Steve Corley on drums--recently released its newest project, titled “Conversance." The album is the first jazz recording released on the Pravda Records label in the label's forty-year history. According to the recording's press release, the Chicago-based indie rock label took a chance on Greene, but it feels more accurate to state that ...
Continue ReadingThe Baylor Project at the DC Jazz Festival
by Bridget A. Arnwine
The Baylor Project The District Wharf The DC Jazz Festival Washington, DC September 3, 2022 The 18th Annual DC Jazz Festival (August 31—September 4, 2022) closed out five days of music with a weekend of spectacular performances at The District Wharf, an outdoor space teeming with restaurants, shopping and waterfront living. Considering that the world is still in the throes of a global health crisis and considering that the DC Jazz Festival had been ...
Continue ReadingHARGROVE
by Bridget A. Arnwine
Roy Hargrove HARGROVE Poplife Productions 2022 When trumpeter Roy Hargrove passed away in November 2018, after enduring a longstanding battle with kidney disease, friends and fans of the jazz wunderkind mourned what could have been almost as much as they celebrated what was. He was, for many, an accessible bridge to jazz music that curious followers of hip-hop and R&B were willing to explore simply because Hargrove had shown them the way. For others, he ...
Continue ReadingChris Greene: PlaySPACE 2: Play Harder
by Bridget A. Arnwine
When a musician begins his set with a warning much like that issued in a pharmaceutical advertisement for mesothelioma, it's probably a safe assumption that those in attendance should brace themselves for what's to come. When that musician is Evanston, IL based bandleader and saxophonist Chris Greene one thing is certain: even after heeding the warning, there's still no way to fully prepare for the powerfully deliberate yet fun and funky approach to playing that each member of the Chris ...
Continue ReadingJim Kuemmerle and the Triangle Jazz Project: Our Work Is Never Done
by Bridget A. Arnwine
The glory of the world is magnified when the beauty of the human spirit is on full display. When our fellow man decides to look beyond the self to see us all as one collective we, then the real work of improving the human condition can begin. As an elementary school student, Jim Kuemmerle's whole world changed when he learned the history of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire--a March 25, 1911 fire that claimed the lives of ...
Continue ReadingWayne Wallace Latin Jazz Quintet: To Hear From There
by Bridget A. Arnwine
Trombonist/composer Wayne Wallace and his music could probably be characterized by any number of clichéd phrases, but why use a cliché when the truth will do. The truth is that Wayne Wallace's To Hear From There is a far better record than its Grammy-nominated predecessor, ¡Bien Bien! (Patois, 2009), and that's saying a lot. Wallace's greatest gift to the music on To Hear From There is that he approaches it respectfully. Wallace, an American man of African ancestry, performs Latin ...
Continue ReadingSophia Shorai: Long As You're Living
by Bridget A. Arnwine
What is most exciting about the new crop of singers coming onto the scene is the abundant joy present in much of their work. They're happy to be singing; they're happy to do what their idols and mentors do; they're happy to be sharing their gift. One listen to singer Sophia Shorai's Long as You're Living and the prominence of her enthusiasm is hard to ignore. Featuring twelve jazz and contemporary music covers, and accompanied by pianist Tommy Barbarella, Shorai's ...
Continue ReadingTom Graf: Grafitti
by Bridget A. Arnwine
There's a familiarity to the songs on composer Tom Graf's Grafitti, that makes the disc feel like an old favorite even though it goes from funk and cha-cha to bop and straight-ahead jazz. There's such an air of familiarity, in fact, that if Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane could hear Grafitti in heaven, they might jump right in play along. It's in the way some songs begin--little flourishes here, borrowed notes there--and in the way it feels like ...
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