Articles by David Becker
Mariah Parker Indo Latin Jazz: Live in Concert
by David Becker
Traditional Indian music, various Latin styles and contemporary jazz have negotiated an unlikely but productive friendship in the Indo Latin Jazz Ensemble, a periodically convened combo of top Northern California jazz and world music players led by pianist Mariah Parker. She reunites the unit for Live in Concert (Ancient Future.com Records, 2017), a collection of smartly imagined original tunes that touch on range of cultural influences but never push connections. You'd expect nothing less from a cast a ...
read moreBobby Hutcherson tribute at SFJAZZ Center
by David Becker
Bobby Hutcherson tribute SFJAZZ Center jny: San Francisco CA January 21, 2017 I still can't quite believe he's gone. No, not that contemporary American icon. I'm talking about Bobby Hutcherson, one of the greatest practitioners ever of the curious art of making the vibraphone sing and a jazz composer of unparalleled wit and invention. Hutcherson laid his mallets down for good last August, and the world has seemed a measurably ...
read moreJoe Lovano, Joshua Redman and lots more at SFJAZZ Center gala
by David Becker
2017 Gala Celebrating Zakir Hussain SFJAZZ Center jny: San Francisco January 18, 2017 When SFJAZZ decides to throw a party, it does not fool around. For evidence, you had to look no farther than the presenter's 2017 gala, celebrating both the 5th anniversary of the organization's impeccable new home smack in the middle of city's cultural district and a lifetime of pioneering work by master percussionist Zakir Hussain, the latest ...
read moreTrombonist Wayne Wallace racking up Grammy nods with distinctive record label
by David Becker
Usually when a musician starts a record label, it's with no intent beyond releasing his own music. Not so with San Francisco-based trombonist Wayne Wallace. Since forming Patois Records (Motto: “Promoting improvisation") more than a decade ago, Wallace has used the label as a vehicle to promote both his own Latin jazz work and music of fellow free spirits performing everything from salsa to big-band jazz. Along the way, the label has picked up a handful of Grammy nominations, including ...
read moreHristo Vitchev: Charting His Own Way
by David Becker
Hristo Vitchev isn't a typical guitar hero. Supremely fluent with his instrument, the prolific composer and performer would rather communicate than show off complex technique. His albums and concerts are full of gorgeously understated performances that leave just the right amount of room for the musicians to support each other and the audience to fill in the blanks. Maybe it was inevitable that Vitchev would take an idiosyncratic approach to jazz, given the twisted route he took to ...
read moreSFJAZZ Collective At SFJAZZ
by David Becker
SFJAZZ Collective SFJAZZ Center San Francisco, CA October 20, 2016 What would Miles think? It was hard not to wonder as the SFJAZZ Collective, the San Francisco jazz presenter's long-running large ensemble project, kicked off it's 12th season with a program dominated by sometimes dramatically re-imagined versions of Miles Davis tunes. The basic playbook for the Collective has been the same since the beginning: Assemble some of the finest players in ...
read moreThe Julian Lage Trio at SFJAZZ
by David Becker
The Julian Lage Trio SFJAZZ Center San Francisco Sept. 11, 2016 Guitar virtuosity was the theme for the opening week of San Francisco presenter SFJAZZ's 2016 season. In the intimate Joe Henderson Lab at the SFJAZZ Center, that meant four nights of modern guitar wunderkind Julian Lage working through a string of alternately reflective and bracingly visceral tunes from his new album, the impressive Arclight (Mack Avenue, 2016). In the much larger main ...
read moreDmitri Matheny: Flugelhorn Evangelist
by David Becker
The flugelhorn can be a difficult mistress. Players may find themselves endlessly explaining the differences between their axe and the trumpet, why their instrument seldom sounds like Miles Davis in a bad mood and why most horn players treat it as a specialty tool. But when someone with the authority of bebop legend and flugelhorn champion Art Farmer, tells you stick with something, you tend to listen. Dmitri Matheny, one of Farmer's last private students and his most ...
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