Jazz Articles

The New York Comes to Groningen Art Ensemble: A Beautiful Friendship

by Bob Kenselaar
October 16, 2012

The New York Comes to Groningen Art EnsembleA Beautiful Friendship: New York Comes to Groningen, Volume 2Prince Claus Conservatory2012 In addition to his active schedule performing in a wide range of jazz contexts on both sides of the Atlantic, bassist Joris Teepe has been director of Jazz Studies for more than a decade at the Prince Claus Conservatoire in the Dutch city of Groningen. In fact, it was Teepe's brainstorm that spawned ...

Avishai Cohen: Seven Seas

by Nenad Georgievski
March 25, 2011

Over the past few years, bassist Avishai Cohen has become recognized as one of the most creative musicians of current times. A fertile composer of the highest rank, he has, among other things, enriched and expanded the genre he works in: a master of the upright bass, an improviser of not-so-often-seen genius, and a bandleader with a rich and kaleidoscopic history. Seven Seas is another exceptional chapter in the Cohen catalog, one that showcases a willingness to ...

Dexter Gordon: Best Of 3CD

by Chris May
May 15, 2009

As shoddily put together compilations go, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon's three-disc Blue Note collection, Best Of 3CD, scrapes rock bottom. From the asinine title, through the inadequate liner annotation (no recording dates, no original album titles, misspelled musicians' names), to the full page photo of Roland Kirk, in simultaneous saxello, stritch and manzello flight, on the inner gatefold cover, it's a lame effort. And it gets worse. That photo is followed by another double-page photo of Kirk, this one unambiguously ...

Van Morrison: Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl

by Mike Perciaccante
February 24, 2009

Forty years after the release of his seminal work, Astral Weeks (Warner Brothers, 1968), Van Morrison decided that the time was right to play the entire album live. To recreate the record acknowledged by many critics as one of the best of all time, Morrison enlisted guitarist Jay Berliner (who played on the original album), many musicians he had worked with previously, and a full string section.

Recorded in early November, 2008, almost forty years to the date ...

Jane Bunnett: Embracing Voices

by Raul d'Gama Rose
August 13, 2008

Jane Bunnett Embracing Voices EMI Canada/Blue Note 2008

Jane Bunnett is never afraid to push the envelope. She did so with her 1988 album, In Dew Time, the now out-of-print vinyl that was produced privately by the Toronto imprint, Dark Light, on which producer, husband and trumpet/flugelhorn player Larry Cramer scooped both keyboard player Don Pullen and saxophonist Dewey Redman. Then followed an extraordinary slew of records, from those featuring Pullen--New York ...

Jack Kerouac with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims: Blues And Haikus

by Sid Smith
May 5, 2008

I discovered jazz and Jack Kerouac at roughly the same time in my teens back in the early 1970s, when his seminal novel On The Road (Viking, 1957) hooked me into the bohemian world of jazz clubs, intense friendships and the never ending highway under wide open skies described in its pages.

It barely mattered that the quick fluid prose in which this hedonistic manifesto was rolled up in didn't always make sense--it was all about feeling something ...

Viktor Krauss: II

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 13, 2007

Thanks to his dexterity and vision on multiple stringed instruments, Krauss is kind of a musical everyman who has recorded and performed with Bill Frisell and Lyle Lovett (both of whom appear on II) plus Chet Atkins, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello and The Chieftains. His solo debut, Far From Enough (Nonesuch, 2004), made it up to #6 on the Contemporary Jazz charts and featured contributions from guitarist Frisell and Allison Kraus (Viktor's sister) on viola and vocals.

Armed ...

Jane Bunnett: Red Dragonfly

by Ken Franckling
June 5, 2005

Toronto-based soprano saxophonist Jane Bunnett has built a solid career that for more than a decade has been focused on exploring traditional jazz and folk music from Cuba, touring with her Spirits of Havana band and also working to bring or send instruments to needy young Cuban players. Red Dragonfly is both an extension of and a departure from her Cuban projects, and it's also her most ambitious and intriguing work to date. Primarily it consists of ...

Jane Bunnett: Red Dragonfly

by Jerry D'Souza
May 23, 2005

For a long time now Jane Bunnett has been a champion of Cuban musicians and their music. What's more, she has several albums that showcase both. This time around, Bunnett expands her parameters to play folk music from several countries. Besides a core jazz band, she also includes a string quartet. Together they take the music beyond jazz to add lush orchestral textures, and at times a tad too much sweetening. This happens on “Heaven's Gate," where the quartet is ...

Adam Makowicz and Leszek Mozdzer: Makowicz vs. Mozdzer at Carnegie Hall

by Joel Roberts
May 6, 2005

Adam Makowicz has such phenomenal technique at the keyboard that it sometimes sounds as if he's playing with four hands. On his latest album there really are four hands at work, though two of them belong to fellow Polish piano sensation Leszek Mozdzer. Their solo and duet excursions on Chopin and popular standards, recorded live at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall last year, make for one of the most stunning showcases of piano virtuosity in recent memory. Makowicz, ...