Articles by Phil DiPietro

Jef Lee Johnson: It's Been So Long Since I've Seen with My Eyes

by Phil DiPietro
February 1, 2013

[ Editor's Note: This 2002 article was republished in memory of Jef Lee Johnson who died at age 54 on January 28, 2013. ]Jef Lee Johnson is a true American original and a true American gift to the musical world. Guys like Jef are the embodiment of every reason to use the phrase, “He's got more talent in his pinkie than so and so has in his entire body!" Problem is, especially lately, relatively dawdling critics like myself ...

Francesco Guaiana Triptyque: The Spoiled Tree

by Phil DiPietro
March 11, 2010

Palermo has, in turns, been designated Italy's cultural, economic, and tourist capital. It has not heretofore been acknowledged for its avant-garde, solo acoustic, spontaneous improv, or modern jazz scenes. Through his consistent issuance of aural postcards from his Byzantine outpost, guitarist Francesco Guaiana has quietly emerged as the region's most gifted practitioner at all of these sub-genres.

2002's Nojaz (Exaudi Records) melded free, inside-outside playing to textural atmospherics, while 2006's solo guitar outing, Clouds in Motion (FGR), adroitly employed loops ...

Jojo Mayer's Nerve: Prohibited Beats

by Phil DiPietro
June 20, 2009

The Moller Whip, the one-hand roll, the push and pull, the heel-toe--dance steps, candy bars, perhaps? No, they're the names of incredible drum techniques attributed to and perfected by charismatic Swiss drummer Jojo Mayer. If you want to know what these techniques are, explore the plethora of drum-centric websites or the demo clips on YouTube documenting his dazzling appearances at the world's major drumfests, where he's royalty.

Not documented enough on record, performances beyond his most readily available with the ...

Justin Vasquez: Triptych

by Phil DiPietro
March 28, 2009

Young saxophonist Justin Vasquez acquits himself assertively on this 2009 debut, adapting the model of the tough Texas tenors to his own assiduous Austin alto. But that convenient alliterative to Vasquez's lone star origins belies his true lineage in the modern, slashing altoist mold carved out by the likes of David Binney,Greg Osby, Steve Coleman and Kenny Garrett.

Possessing all the firepower necessary to fuel an over-the-top debut, Vasquez upped the ante by exercising restraint, pulling together a band full ...

Kenosha Kid: Steamboat Bill, Jr

by Phil DiPietro
March 27, 2009

Guitarist Dan Nettles may still make his home where he grew up in Athens, Georgia, but musically he knows no bounds--geographical or otherwise. Neither, it seems, do the members of his far-flung collective; his Kenosha Kids, as it were. Listening to, among others, Athens' killing rhythm section of Jeff Reilly on drums and Neal Fountain on electric bass, as well as Seattle's tenor man Greg Sinibaldi, Berlin's (by way of Canada) altoist Peter VanHuffel, New York's transplanted Georgian Dave Nelson ...

Romain Collin: The Rise and Fall of Pipokuhn

by Phil DiPietro
March 8, 2009

Romain Collin ushers in the promise of 2009 with an astonishingly mature and ambitious debut that secures him a placeholder in the continuing evolution of the grand tradition of the piano trio. While staking claim to the lineage of Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, and Brad Mehldau, Collin's work favorably contrasts to the modern-day Swedish school exemplified by the au-courant subset of Bobo Stenson, Esbjorn Svennson, and Tord Gustavsen. While European sensibilities and restraint dominate his concept and ...

Sara Serpa: Praia

by Phil DiPietro
November 25, 2008

Sara Serpa is a vocalist wielding an instrument as favorably unadorned and pure as any in jazz. She's the freshest vocalist on the scene at the moment, not just because she's new to it at age 28. It's certainly not because of the way she delivers a lyric, since there usually aren't any. Being from Portugal is also irrelevant, for like much of the great jazz coming our way in the past few years from Lisbon, there is nothing overtly ...

Andre Matos: Rosa-Shock

by Phil DiPietro
November 24, 2008

Andre Matos, at 27, is the latest young guitarist to take aim at the international jazz scene from the strategic port of Lisbon and its effervescent Tone of a Pitch imprint. Like his labelmates, Matos is a free thinker. He combines modern jazz with the attitude, mood and tinge of modern rock and creates what could be termed “alternative" jazz, but not the kind that manipulates Nirvana covers. Both in writing and execution, Matos takes more than literal ...

David Fiuczynski: KiF Express

by Phil DiPietro
November 21, 2008

David “Fuze" Fiuczynski continues to obliterate the boundaries of modern-day electric guitar styles, pushing himself further forward into the “world" sounds, techniques, scales, and rhythms that now constitute his calling-card. Funk can be 4/4 or 11/8, tone distorted or bone dry, chords root-fifth crunchers or undeniably undecipherable . He can make a fretted guitar sound fretless, but he's also the world's foremost fretless guitarist, rendering him one of the world's premier slide guitarists--but he plays “slide" with his fingertips. All ...

Jimmy Herring: The Lifeboat Sessions and More

by Phil DiPietro
October 21, 2008

Jimmy Herring has transitioned from an underground favorite to one of America's elite guitarists. The resume is now a dream, progressing from GIT to ARU, Frogwings to the Allman Brothers, Jazz is Dead to Phil Lesh and then on to the real thing--the actual Dead, if you will. Herring is the archetype for the melody-drenched lead man that can take it to far off galaxies. Somehow, nobody plays like Herring, but he's always capable of reminding sometimes huge audiences exactly ...