Articles by Dan McClenaghan
Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Seek & Listen: Live At The Penthouse
by Dan McClenaghan
Most jazz fans are likely familiar with the visual images that are usually tagged onto the music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1935 -1977)--photos of a man in black sunglasses with three (or more) reed instruments around his neck and/or in his mouth. That these optics often precede the experience of the music is ironic, since Kirk himself was blind. But Kirk was a showman. These images caught the attention. And he did indeed play three (maybe only two; maybe the ...
Continue ReadingJussi Reijonen: Sayr: Salt | Thirst
by Dan McClenaghan
Listening to Finish guitarist/oudist Jussi Reijonen's Sayr: Salt | Thirst without delving into his rich backstory is a journey into two extended solo guitar pieces that play out as ruminative dream states. Concentrating on just the sound, images of Lightnin' Hopkins might come to mind: the bluesman huddled down in a small, dim hotel room after a show, improvising outside of time. Or maybe it is Howlin' Wolf sitting on the rumpled bed with the guitar on his lap, in ...
Continue ReadingJohn O'Gallagher: Ancestral
by Dan McClenaghan
Saxophonist John O'Gallagher keeps moving east in his search for musical expression. Born in Anaheim, California, before relocating to New York City and living there for thirty years, he finds himself (in 2025) in Lisbon, Portugal. He boasts a played with/recorded with resume to knock the proverbial socks off (Joe Henderson, Tony Malaby, Maria Schneider, Kenny Wheeler, and more). He also dived John Coltrane's late period explorations--Interstellar Space (Impulse!, 1974) and Stellar Regions (Impulse Records, 1967), From this Coltrane-ian immersion, ...
Continue ReadingDayna Stephens: Monk'D
by Dan McClenaghan
A jazz artist stepping into the studio to record some Thelonious Monk can approach the task from different angles. They can go all in and make a statement with solely Monk tunes. Pianist Ran Blake's Epistrophy (Soul Note, 1991) is one example of this approach. Or the artist can pick one of their favorite Monk classics (or two or three) and present them alongside a batch of originals and/or tunes by other artists to create a set list. Almost everybody ...
Continue ReadingCarmen Staaf: Sounding Line
by Dan McClenaghan
Thelonious Monk (1917 -1982) was often grouped with the bebop pianists of the late 1940s and early 1950s. But he was not bop. He was a pianistic world unto itself. Quirky, dissonant, often playful. Mary Lou Williams (1910 -1981) did not fit the bop category either. She came in before bop's advent. Her music was stylistically closer to Duke Ellington's eloquence, sass and swing. Bop aside, pianist Carmen Staaf heard a musical kinship between these two 20th-century contemporaries. ...
Continue ReadingAnat Fort: The Dreamworld of Paul Motian
by Dan McClenaghan
Borrowing a sentiment from the title of the 1959 Riverside Records album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, it is safe to say that pianist Anat Fort digs Paul Motian. Her The Dreamworld of Paul Motian says so. We can attribute a big part of Motian's career success to pianist Bill Evans (1929 -1980). Portrait In Jazz (Riverside, 1960) was the first Evans album that included Motian in the drummer's chair. More followed, including the groundbreaking Sunday At the Village ...
Continue ReadingRoberto Magris: Lovely Day (s)
by Dan McClenaghan
Italian pianist Roberto Magris began his journey to the United States--specifically, Kansas City--in 2007, although his recording career began in 1990, in Europe. He expresses himself, for the most part, in the bebop mode--good old-fashioned bop. His inspirations: Lee Morgan, Elmo Hope, Cannonball Adderley and more. Magris found a home at Kansas City's JMood Records, where he has released more than a score of classic albums. But never a solo piano outing. Magris is so adept ...
Continue ReadingCollin Sherman: Life Eats Life
by Dan McClenaghan
Collin Sherman, a multiple reedman, has a day job in Manhattan. But on nights and weekends, he sheds the work clothes and switches into his idiosyncratic original voice in the creation of music. Life Eats Life is a solo effort. He plays and records all the instruments in his living room for his albums. Then he overdubs it all together--an audio cut-and-paste affair. He is responsible for the crafting of the spooky, 1940-ish Noir and the exotic saxophone-over-drones outing String ...
Continue ReadingNatsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii: Ki
by Dan McClenaghan
The sound of Ki is deeply steeped in deliberation, dignity and old-world stateliness. This, coming from the long-term team of trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii, might surprise those who have followed the duo's trajectory over its quarter-century-plus existence. Fujii and Tamura stir up musical pots and pans in a startling array of styles. Most of the dishes they cook up are avant-garde--Fujii's boisterous big band stews, Tamura's truculent treks spiced with electricity and/or extended trumpet technique tom foolery ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Coleman: George Coleman with Strings
by Dan McClenaghan
Tenor saxophonist George Coleman decided to leave the orbit of trumpeter Miles Davis in 1964. Or he got an elbow to the ribs and a hip check to leave the quintet, to be replaced by Wayne Shorter in the saxophone slot. Three top-notch live albums came out of the group that featured Coleman: In Europe: Live at the Antibes Jazz Festival (1964); My Funny Valentine: In Concert (1965); and “Four and More:" In Concert (1966), all on Columbia Records. Add ...
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