Articles by Steve Armour

Meet Sam Newsome

by Steve Armour
August 3, 2007

Courage and vision in the creation of art are rarely rewarded commercially. Sam Newsome proved it does occasionally happen, though the outcome is never certain. After years spent developing a reputation as a first-rate tenor saxophonist alongside Terrance Blanchard, Donald Byrd and Lionel Hampton, Newsome gave up the tenor to concentrate exclusively on the soprano sax. It was a risk, but he developed a musical identity on soprano, and eventually a forward-looking, “cross-cultural jazz" group to present it. His reward ...

Darby Christensen: At the Jazz Summit

by Steve Armour
January 27, 2004

If you still see Summit Records as a niche label for classical brass players, Summit president Darby Christensen wants you to take another look. The label's catalogue still has great brass recordings, but it also features chamber music, educational recordings, and an ever-growing roster of jazz musicians. Summit seeks a broad audience, Christensen says, “the music lover." He sums up the label this way: “Good music is what we're all about."All About Jazz: How did Summit form?

Gilles Bernard: Le Chapeau de ma Soeur

by Steve Armour
July 1, 2001

The first few times I listened to LE CHAPEAU DE MA SOEUR, I fell into a kind of trance and missed the solos. But I didn’t care. Quebecois composer and pianist Gilles Bernard has created such hypnotic harmonies and textures, such fetching melodies that the solos seem almost an afterthought, a little something to extend the meditation.

Bernard starts with Alain Boies’s soft soprano on the title track, a folk melody set in a discreet 11/4 (5/4+6/4, mostly). The band ...

Sylvain Provost/Norman Lachapelle: Ni Un Ni Deux

by Steve Armour
April 1, 2001

Sonority, not tradition, centers the music on Ni Un Ni Deux. The rich blend of Norman Lachapelle's upright bass with Sylvain Provost's acoustic guitar (plus percussion help from Pierre Cormier) anchors the duo as they stretch across musical boundaries. It makes for great sounding music, if uneven jazz.

The pair sounds happy, mostly. The vibe is so pleasant on “Deux Visites" that even Provost's humming along with himself (somewhere between George Benson and Keith Jarrett) doesn't annoy me much, though ...

Christine Jensen: Collage

by Steve Armour
April 1, 2001

Christine Jensen starts Collage with a blues in fancy wrapping: a funky Rhodes ostinato, a displaced, sliding tonal center, and a stutter-step orchestration. This rich writing asks and gets the most from Jensen's musicians on this, her debut recording.

Drummer Karl Jannuska and pianist Brad Turner chat it up throughout the album. Their open phrasing on “Sweet Adelphi" and “Half Tide" lets the soloists breathe--lets them say something, then rest. Turner leads while Jannuska adds sweeteners and asides: an extra ...

Daniel Thouin: Organique

by Steve Armour
March 1, 2001

Hemingway said good writing comes from what you leave out, a lesson pianist Daniel Thouin and his Montreal-based partners have applied to music on their new release, Organique (I’m guessing French for “organic"). They leave out the bass on the opener, the splang-splang-a-lang cymbal pattern just about everywhere else, any statement of time in one of the ballads – they even leave out the blowing on the last track. And when a space opens for them to rehash, retread, or ...

Tom Christensen: Gualala

by Steve Armour
October 1, 2000

Despite the almost thirty-five year absence of a dominant figure, jazz is still evolving. While the big institutions of jazz sniff along after retro trends and media darlings, small labels, small clubs and individually minded musicians are developing the music separate from any clear mainstream. The results of this Balkanization of jazz have been uneven, but now and then a recording surfaces to remind you that the direction is still forward. Gualala, the debut CD from New York multi-instrumentalist Tom ...