Jazz Articles

Eugene Lee: equilibrium

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
October 4, 2009

On this solo disc, his third, Portland, Oregon-based saxophonist Eugene Lee marks a further step in the disciplined path that led through his last release, Meditations (Pure Potentiality, 2008).equilibrium (all the titles are in lower-case, e.e. cummings-like) shares some elements of Meditations, notably the presence of Lee alone and the liberal use of electronics to generate a wealth of sonic variety: echo, loops, distortion. While the earlier record depicted the various states of the mind during meditation, this ...

Eugene Lee: Meditations

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
December 11, 2008

Jazz musicians have showed a sporadic enthusiasm for meditation: experiments by John Coltrane (and Alice Coltrane), Pharoah Sanders and Keith Jarrett spring to mind, as does the clarinetist Tony Scott's quixotic Music for Zen Meditation (Verve, 1964)

The music on these records focuses either on the nirvana-like state to which meditation practitioners could aspire after years of practice--such is the connotation of the Japanese woodwinds that accompany Scott on his Zen record, for example--or the vigorous journey toward ...

Ben Stepner: Nineteen Pieces for Piano

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
September 18, 2007

There's a corridor on the second floor of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris with a breathtaking succession of paintings by post-Impressionists like Bonnard, Vuillard and Denis. Less visited and less famous than the paintings by Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, van Gogh and others upstairs, they are nevertheless a highlight, perhaps the outstanding highlight of a visit to the museum.Listening to pianist Ben Stepner's début, a short record of short solo piano pieces (average length: one-and-a-half minutes) is a bit ...

Eugene Lee: Srivbanacore

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
May 25, 2007

Srivbanacore is the début record from twenty-five-year-old Framingham, Mass.-based saxophonist Eugene Lee, and the first release from the Pure Potentiality label. Fans of the free will want to lend an interested ear.The record is more or less split between three tracks that feature the lower range of the alto instrument ("Voices," the title track, “There Will Never Be Another Pluto"), quite freely played but with one foot squarely in the tradition, and three very different minimalist compositions in ...