Articles by Neil Tesser
Brad Goode: Polytonal Big Band: The Snake Charmer
by Neil Tesser
I try to avoid hyperbole. I'm not all that comfortable out on a limb. But I'll still wager you've never come across a big-band album like this. Perhaps you've heard orchestras that use dissonance and unexpected note clusters as their operating system. Maybe you've encountered soloists who ply their playing with extended technique and postmodern pastiche, vividly escaping the gravitational pull of conventional composition. But I can't think of an album that combines these elements with the electric ...
Continue ReadingDino Betti van der Noot: A Chance For A Dance
by Neil Tesser
"I love the rhythm—one of the reasons I love jazz is the rhythm—but I have spent some years to free myself from the rhythm." Dino Betti van der Noot sits over breakfast rolls at the Rosetta Hotel in Perugia, Italy. “I experimented with different time signatures and finally found out that the simplest ones are perfect, as long as you make use of them as, oh, railways, rail tracks." In other words, the time-feel must be a guide, a phisical, ...
Continue ReadingMetropolitan Jazz Octet featuring Paul Marinaro: The Bowie Project
by Neil Tesser
In the words of David Bowie: “Changes." The Metropolitan Jazz Octet's two previous albums teem with unadulterated jazz. Paul Marinaro is a hard-swinging, expressive baritone steeped in the Great American Songbook and the jazz tradition. So what in the galaxy are they doing with the music of pop legend--and onetime glam rocker, dancehall king, visual visionary, music man of multiple personae, and cultural icon--David Bowie? Historians might note that Bowie started playing jazz saxophone in his ...
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