Articles by Raul d'Gama Rose
Ravita Jazz: Alice Blue
by Raul d'Gama Rose
In the 1939-40 academic year at Harvard University, Igor Stravinsky delivered a series of six lectures in French entitled Poétique musicale sous forme de six leçons. Stravinsky analysed the role of the critic, the requirements of the interpreter and the state of Russian music. He believed that a composer's freedom to create rose from a platform of structures which incorporated the rules of music--a process that ultimately frees the spirit. Stravinsky understood his own vocation as that of ...
Continue ReadingKay Grant / Alex Ward: Fast Talk
by Raul d'Gama Rose
It is not often that the human voice is pitted against another human voice expressed through the vibrations of a moist and well-shaven reed of any instrument that has one, let alone a clarinet, which is made of seasoned wood and has the ability of being made to cry and wail just as naturally as another human voice. Yet this is exactly what can be experienced on the extraordinary Fast Talk, featuring vocalist extraordinaire Kay Grant and clarinetist Alex Ward. ...
Continue ReadingJohn Butcher / Mark Sanders: Daylight
by Raul d'Gama Rose
There is a visceral energy that drives the music on Daylight and all of this has to do with the wonderful musicality of saxophonist John Butcher and drummer Mark Sanders. From the sense of moist breath that courses through Butcher's horn--as interspersed with breathy growls, guttural smears and sensational squeaks and wails, depending on the emotional prompts of the improvised score--to the primordial echo of Sanders' drums, the music turns a whole palette of colors and hues as it unfolds ...
Continue ReadingVeryan Weston / Ingrid Laubrock / Hannah Marshall: Haste
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Veryan Weston is one of the most creative musicians in recent times--or, perhaps, ancient times would be closer to the truth, for what is new emanates from the old and what is old gives birth to the new. Weston presides over this conundrum like a medieval apothecary concocting brilliant and powerful and magical potions that take the form of musical scores invented on the spot where time and space collide.Weston is an artist who follows the prompts of ...
Continue ReadingWayne Escoffery: The Only Son of One
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Not since the works of bassist Charles Mingus and saxophonist John Coltrane has there been music so charged with emotion and so engulfed in spirituality as The Only Son of One, an album that bleeds with raw sentiment as it bares the soul of its young saxophonist and composer, Wayne Escoffery, and ultimately brings much catharsis and edification. In the sorrowful and glorious vocalastics of his saxophone, Escoffery reveals the pain and ultimate triumph of his relationship with his parents ...
Continue ReadingMiles Okazaki: Figurations
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Guitarist Miles Okazaki's Figurations is a fascinating document of how musical invention takes place on the spur of the moment. It is not a mad conglomeration of notes that come out in jagged clusters, but a mellifluous harmolodic excursion by four spectacular musicians as they begin to create music on each of their instruments, with their own ideas flowing organically, yet directed by the composer, Okazaki, who defines how the melody should sound by stating its antecedents and basic idea. ...
Continue ReadingGuillermo Klein y Los Guachos: Carrera
by Raul d'Gama Rose
In his first recording since the magnificent arrangements of music of by Cuchi Leguizamon, Domador de Huellas (Sunnyside 2010), pianist Guillermo Klein has reassembled his main musical vehicle, Los Guachos, for Carrera. Here, Klein once again shows why he is such a master of manipulating the voices of the instruments he uses, bringing out subtle variations in tone and color. Moreover, like his mentor, Gil Evans, he is able to nominate the voices he wishes to use to express his ...
Continue ReadingBen Riley: Grown Folks Music
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Ben Riley is best-described as a drummer who has always been the epitome of great taste, elegance and almost certainly possessed of a higher musical intelligence. There is no better recommendation for this than the fact that Thelonious Monk hired him as a drummer, but if further proof were requested , then all that needs doing would be to spin Grown Folks Music, this eloquently bluesy albeit seemingly short session with a rising star on the saxophone, Wayne Escoffery. The ...
Continue ReadingScott Dubois: Landscape Scripture
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Guitarist, Scott DuBois has taken a masterly turn with Landscape Scripture, an extended piece that carries aural impressions of one of Claude Monet's famous series of paintings, “Haystacks." The renowned French master had conceived of his pastoral exhibit in a series of 25 canvases that looked at the iconic sculptures of hay at different times of day, and at different times of the year. DuBois has created his suite around aspects of the paintings depicted by the four seasons and ...
Continue ReadingScott Tixier: Brooklyn Bazaar
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Violinist Scott Tixier is like a young fledgling poised to take off. This is a wondrous sight: arms (the wings) painfully outstretched, neck and, indeed, the whole body arched and on tip-toes, his bow swinging wildly as he flies off into the azure unknown. He is awkward at first; then sure that he will soar and swoop and soar again, he is off on a spectacular and fanciful flight, following in the updraft of those who flew before him: Don ...
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