Articles by Dan McClenaghan
Anat 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 ...
Continue ReadingFieldwork: Thereupon
by Dan McClenaghan
Early in his recording career, pianist Vijay Iyer formed his most compelling group, Fieldwork. The initial album release, Your Life Flashes (Pi Recordings, 2002) broke new ground and put down the roots from which everything Iyer has created in 20-plus years has grown and flourished. Iyer's recording career began in 1995 with Memorophilia (Asian Improv). The ensuing 30 years have seen more than a score of albums from the pianist in a leadership role as well as dozens ...
Continue ReadingWilliam Carn's Choices: The Unburdening
by Dan McClenaghan
The Covid pandemic allowed Canadian trombonist William Carn to push toward electronics, to move in the direction of going remote with his fellow players for the process of putting a set of sounds together. His debut album, 2023's self-produced Choices (review here) started the process. He doubles down (a much-heard phrase in the 2020s, thanks to a certain politician) on the do-it- at-home mode for his second recording, The Unburdening. The previously mentioned politician's 'double down' means doing something cruel ...
Continue ReadingChad McCullough: Transverse
by Dan McClenaghan
Chance encounters can be fortuitous and fruitful. Trumpeter Chad McCullough, on a visit to Macedonia to convene with family, found his way into a small cafe in Skopje, the capital of Independent North Macedonia, where he encountered a local trio: pianist Gordon Spasovski, bassist Kiril Tufekcievski and drummer Viktor Filipovski. McCullough had his horn with him. He was invited to sit in. A musical connection came about and eventually Transverse happened--the group's first “recording together on American soil" (a quote ...
Continue ReadingMatthew Shipp: The Cosmic Piano
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Matthew Shipp has a mathematical side: The Multiplication Table (hatOLOGY, 1998) and The Piano Equation (Tao Forms, 2020) hint at this. He has a metabolic side: DNA (Thirsty Ear, 1999) and Right Hemisphere (Rogueart, 2008). And he has a solar system side: Gravitational Systems (hatOLOGY, 2000) and New Orbit (Thirsty Ear, 2001). And finally, though there is more, he goes into cosmic modes, on Cosmic Lieder (AUM Fidelity, 2011) and the disc at hand, The Cosmic Piano, a solo ...
Continue ReadingDenny Zeitlin: With a Song In My Heart: Exploring The Music of Richard Rodgers
by Dan McClenaghan
Musical memories from childhood have a way of sticking. For some, it might be an encounter with Beethoven from a dusty stack of old albums packed away in the parental record collection. For others, it might be the (then, 1954) modern surge of Bill Haley and the Comets shaking, rattling and rolling into the kitchen to make some noise with the pots and pans. Or maybe a chance discovery of 78 RPM records in the garage containing Al Dexter's 1942 ...
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