Jazz Articles
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Jack Wood: Movie Magic. Great Songs from the Movies
by Richard J Salvucci
Someone could be forgiven for thinking that everyone loves music from the movies. After all: Jule Styne; Leslie Bricusse; Johnny Mandel; Sammy Fain; Harry Warren; Richard Rodgers ; Henry Mancini; Johnny Mercer; Antonio Carlos Jobim; Michel Legrand; Bernice Petkere; and Isham Jones is hardly a list of minor talents, but all are represented on Movie Magic. Is it the music itself, the associated film or both that are compelling? Perhaps an emotional connection to a moment, a time, a person ...
Continue ReadingMark Watkins: FOUR + Six
by Chris May
We had out of nowhere, we had straight outta Compton. Here comes straight out of Brigham Young University, Idaho, where saxophone quartet FOUR leader Mark Watkins has been director of jazz studies since 1999. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints may not the most abundant source of high-grade jazz--one assumes that Watkins is a member--but FOUR + Six proves it can be. Who would have thunk it? But jazz is a broad church and the album is proof ...
Continue ReadingJay Lawrence: Sonic Paragon
by Dan Bilawsky
Sonic Paragon is a satisfying set grounded in the idea of broad appeal. Drummer Jay Lawrence is no purist, and he's certainly not stubbornly set on a single course, yet he's wholly cognizant of the fact that music is both for the makers and the takers. And with an understanding of that need for balance and some help from a real dream band, he creates a program that basically works for both sides of the fence. Opening ...
Continue ReadingSteve Lindeman with BYU Synthesis: The Day After Yesterday
by Jack Bowers
There are times when making music requires sacrifice. Few people should be more aware of this than composer / arranger Steve Lindeman who studied from 2008-11 at the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop in New York City--while he was living in Utah! The Workshop held meetings one to three times a month, and Lindeman simply commuted to them by air, rooming with a daughter who had an apartment in Brooklyn. “[W]hile racking up enough frequent flier miles to own half of ...
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