Articles by James Nichols

Ricardo Gallo Cuarteto: Udimbres y Maranas

by James Nichols
May 9, 2008

Ricardo Gallo Cuarteto Udimbres y Maranas La Distritofonica 2008

The Ricardo Gallo Cuarteto's sound is complex--and not just because the Cuarteto is born out of a marriage between avant-garde jazz and Colombian rhythms. What adds further depth to their music is the emotional density that shows itself almost immediately on Urdimbres y Maranas...

The opening “Tablitas" starts with a bass growl that climbs through the registers and exhausts itself at the top ...

The Mad Jazz Hatters at Barbes in Brooklyn

by James Nichols
February 17, 2008

The Mad Jazz Hatters Barbes Brooklyn, New York January 31, 2008

Barbe's, at 376 Ninth Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn, deserves to be more widely known. It is in this venue that the careers of Hazmat Modine and Slavic Soul Party (just to name a couple) have been launched. These bands have since gone on to bigger things (though Slavic Soul Party still performs there on occasion.) Indeed, the reason that the bands move ...

David "Fathead" Newman's 75th Birthday Extravaganza at Iridium

by James Nichols
February 15, 2008

David “Fathead" Newman's 75th Birthday Celebration Iridium New York, New York January 24, 2008

The jazz tourist in New York can be easily disappointed. Historical 52nd street is now a palimpsest over which Times Square has imperially strewn yet more of its glitter and spectacle. But standing amidst all this post-Giuliani glamour is Club Iridium, a lonely basement club sharing the corner of Broadway and 51st with the ghosts of Club Onyx, the Downbeat, ...

New School Jazz Celebrates 20 Years With Concert

by James Nichols
July 19, 2007

20th Anniversary Concert New School New York, NY June 20, 2007New School's good for jazz; and it has been for a long time. As early as 1941 the New School for Social Research began holding classes in jazz, making it the first college in New York City to do so. To put this date in context, at about the same time as New School began teaching jazz classes, up at Minton's Playhouse ...

Pete Cosey's Children of Agharta Play the Lower East Side

by James Nichols
July 8, 2007

Pete Cosey's Children of AghartaCave CanemNew York, NYJune 21, 2007Pete Cosey's Children Of Agharta channels the fusion music of the great Miles Davis band of the early to mid-1970s. They go down many of the same roads blazed by the Davis group of that era when, in fact, Cosey filled the lead guitar chair. Yet simply comparing Cosey's band to the Dark Magus band does not give Children of Agharta its due credit-even if Miles ...

Emilio Solla's Tango Jazz Project at Smalls, NYC

by James Nichols
May 25, 2007

Emilio Solla's Tango-Jazz Project Smalls New York City April 28, 2007

On the weekend of April 28, Emilio Solla brought a heady blend of jazz and distinctly Argentinian music to the intimate setting of Smalls in the West Village. At Smalls most of the seats are the standard issue kitchen chairs, and there really is no stage. The effect is one of simplicity and charm complemented by warmth and enhanced intimacy due to the ...

Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog at Tonic New York

by James Nichols
March 29, 2007

Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog Tonic New York City 107 Norfolk Street between Delancey and Rivington New York, New York

On March 19th Marc Ribot brought to the Tonic his Ceramic Dog. The band was fresh off of a tour of Europe and Turkey, and the venue was standing room only. Ribot opened with a poem, a sort of dry-witted polemic written during the tour (and suiting the venue) about security ...

Tree On IK: You Choose

by James Nichols
July 1, 2002

Tree on I K Kontemporary Jazz Kreations explore some of the avenues pioneered by modern acid and jam bands on their debut album You Choose. They incorporate a poet/ free stylist on a couple of tracks and state some themes on a digital B3 organ over a funky beat. Despite being gifted musicians, if they happen upon a particularly hip groove, they will stay with it for a while. Also in common with these jam bands, they feel like a ...

Bryn Roberts: Present Tense

by James Nichols
August 1, 2001

“Spring is Here." A bittersweet notion says Bryn Roberts on his album Present Tense. The Rodgers and Hart chestnut receives a rather moody makeover that competes with the Bill Evans version in its gloom quotient.

The group from Canada often resembles Keith Jarrett or any number of his label mates on ECM. The music skirts the line between achingly beautiful and morosely introspective. This music, while not always terribly exciting (track four “Forty" initially sounds a little like the trolley ...

Tim O'Dell: Before My Life

by James Nichols
August 1, 2001

Saxophonist Tim O’Dell’s Before My Life takes the listener on an odyssey through most of the jazz styles of the past 40 years. An exploratory album, Tim O’Dell still finds an easy cohesion despite juxtaposing so many raw elements.

From the opening “Id," (an oblation to Filles De Kilimanjaro era Miles Davis) O’Dell moves into freer territory ultimately ending in a trombone and saxophone duet called simply “Etude". The hypnotic “Free by twelve," however, provides the highlight of the album. ...