Jazz Articles

Mike Nock - Marty Ehrlich: The Waiting Game

by Glenn Astarita
March 1, 2000

The Waiting Game is all about two top-flight jazz professionals uniting for a series of duets consisting of original compositions and a few standards along with arrangements of traditional songs. Multi-reedman Marty Ehrlich is an important figure in modern jazz, as few will argue that notion. Along with the skillful and ever-resourceful pianist Mike Nock (who is also the artistic director for NAXOS jazz), the duo cover a variety of themes and ideas yet for the most part, The Waiting ...

Mike Nock and Marty Ehrlich: The Waiting Game

by C. Michael Bailey
March 1, 2000

Duo. The Waiting Game probably has more in common with Mark Ramsden and Steve Lodder ( Above The Clouds, Naxos Jazz 84041-2) than Buddy DeFranco and Dave McKenna or George Cables and Art Pepper. This disc is almost completely improvisatory in nature, Nock and Ehrlich working from simple motifs with a fair share of famous Nock abstraction. The majority of the pieces are original, excepting Brubeck’s “The Duke” and James P. Johnson’s “Snowy Morning Blues”. Mike Nock is, of course, ...

Mike Stern: Play

by Jason West
October 1, 1999

For fans of Mike Stern, recommending his latest CD is like preaching to the choir, but for those unfamiliar with Stern’s guitar, PLAY maybe the music that calls you to the church-house door.

Teamed up with guitar-buds John Scofield and Bill Frisell, Stern offers music lovers, and guitar devotees especially, a cornucopia of killer riffs, funky licks, soulful blues, and kick-ass solos--making PLAY one of his most diverse and accessible releases to date.

Recorded in New York and Seattle, Stern’s ...

Mike Stern: Play

by Douglas Payne
October 1, 1999

If Mike Stern were a guitarist coming out of the 1960s, he'd be a hero today. Sure, there's always John McLaughlin. But not many other guitarists then - or now - could play rock guitar with the high degree of intimacy and the non-assaulting technical prowess that Mike Stern has always possessed.Plus, if there was any kind of justice in jazz, Miles Davis's Star People (1983) would be regarded as one the great records of the Eighties it ...