Articles by Dean Nardi
Dave Anderson: Plays with Gusto
by Dean Nardi
Gusto! Vigorous and enthusiastic. Implies doing something with great spirit and energy. From the Spanish, gusto indicates taste, pleasure or liking, and that, friends, wraps and puts a bow around what you hear from New York-based soprano and tenor saxophonist Dave Anderson on his uplifting In Lieu of Flowers album (Label1, 2025). Anderson needed no warmup for the record, launching immediately into “Outer Circle," displaying the tight harmonic camaraderie between the leader and the rest of the quartet. ...
Continue ReadingGustavo Cortiñas Inspires Unity and Empathy Through Music
by Dean Nardi
The renowned French writer Victor Hugo once wrote that “music is noise that thinks." Hugo was highlighting the profound and intellectual nature of music, suggesting that while it may seem like disorganized sound ("noise"), it carries deep meaning and expresses complex ideas and emotions that can only be conveyed through this medium. Hugo also wrote of music which expresses what cannot remain silent. And on that note, we come to the project of Chicago-based drummer and composer Gustavo ...
Continue ReadingShuffle Demons: They Are for Real... Really
by Dean Nardi
On the Shuffle Demons' Are You Really Real (Alma Records 2025), the uncategorizable Toronto band knits together traditional jazz, modern funk playfulness, blues, rap and the sensuality of Prince. For an ensemble that has been a going concern for 40 years, they maintain an optimistic, let's-go-for-something-new outlook, reflected in their flamboyant retro clothing that resembles that worn by harmonizing quartets with 1950s haircuts, looking so sharp they could pierce the heart of a bureaucrat. Born out of busking on Toronto's ...
Continue ReadingTropos: Outer Space Chamber Music
by Dean Nardi
Upon first listen to Switches (Endectomorph, 2024), the remarkable album from the group Tropos, one could imagine being caught in the traffic circle at the Arc de Triomphe. The clarinet blares, the violin evokes the squeal of rubber, the drums maintain the churning sound of the motors, while the piano searches for a safe exit. Is it madness or a loosely choreographed palette of sounds? Towards the end of the record, you listen to the beautiful violin and horn duet ...
Continue ReadingMatthieu Chazarenc Evokes Bel Canto, Singing and Celebration
by Dean Nardi
The music has its source in Matthieu Chazarenc's natal southwest of France. The Paris-based drummer has offered his unique blend of jazz, classical and multi-rhythmic versatility on Canto III (Bonsai Music, 2024), linked to his first two albums as a leader--Canto II (Cristal Records, 2021) and Canto I (Jazz Family, 2018). “I like to be able to work over time," he said. “Things take time to build."The colorful jazz emanates from the fruits of encounters with his core ...
Continue ReadingMichala Østergaard-Nielsen: The Poetic Vibrations of Drumming
by Dean Nardi
Michala Østergaard-Nielsen is a jazz drummer from Denmark, a country with a rich tradition of women playing drums. Once during a lesson with Gerald Cleaver, she was told you could either play drums upon sound or upon a pattern. “That really opened the doors for me to not think just the technical things, but listen to it as a sound," she said, looking back on what she gained from these lessons. Østergaard-Nielsen had classical training on the piano ...
Continue ReadingJamie Baum: These Are Her Times
by Dean Nardi
Jamie Baum is a world-class composer as well as flutist, who smoothly balances woodwinds with horns, guitar, bass, piano and drums so that they are equals. Her compositions can remind you of a Gil Evans arrangement with several decades of development added to create a thoroughly modern milieu. She mixes high-energy with ballads and Western foundations with South Asian colors; the music so charged it practically has a visible aura around the score. You can hear it on Bridges (Sunnyside, ...
Continue ReadingJulian Shore: Sharing Secrets Under The Rose
by Dean Nardi
Piano trios walk the thin line between exhibitionism and intimacy, and you can look no further than Bill Evans whose tones vibrated ever so slightly with the distant thrill of zeal. Despite insistent attempts to overlook its worthiness in contemporary jazz, the piano trio is alive and well, in good hands with pianists such as Kris Davis, whose Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic Records, 2024) with Robert Hurst and Johnathan Blake sends shivers up and down the spine. The Sunna Gunnlaug ...
Continue ReadingTracy Yang Embraces Her Multi-Cultural Background in Composition
by Dean Nardi
Tracy Yang is intimately familiar with the significance placed on identity in music. However, this awareness has not stopped the Taiwanese American composer from embracing all of her musical gifts, regardless of style. It is a choice that in just a handful of years has led Yang to a number of awards and recognition for her work, including the Charlie Parker Jazz Composition prize in 2021, the Benny Golson Award while attending the Berklee College in Boston and Golden Melody ...
Continue ReadingLucian Ban: Following Bartók's Trail Through the Transylvanian Villages
by Dean Nardi
It is hard to re-invent where jazz can go. Players can eschew all the conventional methods they want, but a wheel is still a wheel. This is a reason why pianist Lucian Ban's efforts to bring to light the Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist Bela Bartók's works as a field collector of folk music in 21st-century terms are so important and riveting. Ban expands on these recordings, which were stored on notebooks and wax cylinders, with ancillary writings and photos ...
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