Jazz Articles
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Jacknife: The Music Of Jackie McLean
by Dan Bilawsky
If you ask any well-informed jazz fans and performers about the legacy of Jackie McLean, you're likely to be met with a response that focuses on one or two specific areas: his work as a mentor-educator and/or his playing on a number of classic Blue Note dates from the '60s. But how many will mention the songs--McLean's own compositions and the writings of his fellow travelers--that appeared on those albums? Probably very few. Saxophonist Steve Lugerner rightly sees that as ...
Continue ReadingJonah Parzen-Johnson: Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow
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by Dave Wayne
In the hands (and minds) of certain artists, self-imposed limitations can actually become fertile ground for creative work- arounds, new strategies, new ways of seeing and hearing things. Multi-instrumentalist Jonah Parzen-Johnson is one such artist. Parzen-Johnson plays baritone saxophone and analog synthesizer simultaneously and spontaneously. No overdubs or studio trickery. As you might imagine, his music is quite distinctive. After listening to Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow, I would say that what Parzen-Johnson is doing is attempting to merge ...
Continue ReadingJonah Parzen-Johnson: Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow
by Dan Bilawsky
Hymn-like melodies, oscillating and quivering sounds, and a mixture of solemnity and adventurousness all inform the solo work of saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson. On Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow, Parzen-Johnson is all by his lonesome with his baritone saxophone and analog synthesizer, creating what could rightly be described as trance spirituals for the modern epoch or, in the words of the man himself, “lo-fi experimental folk music." Parzen-Johnson, a Chicago native who's now based in Brooklyn, was ...
Continue ReadingJonah Parzen-Johnson: Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow
by Karl Ackermann
The young baritone saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson, a Chicago native and Brooklyn resident, has an enviable musical pedigree. With music degrees from NYU and Manhattan School of Music, he also studied under Mwata Bowden, of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and a member of the eclectic (but long defunct) 8 Bold Souls. Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow is Parzen-Johnson's second release following Michiana (Primary Records, 2012)--both solo outings. Parzen-Johnson, while being strongly influenced ...
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