Jazz Articles
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Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra: Harbour
by Scott Lichtman
There's something special about Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra's Harbour. Foremost, the album builds on Jensen's acknowledged talent as master composer for over 25 years. She writes songs that stimulate the emotions as well as the intellect, and she arranges them using rich, cross-instrumental blends and fresh, punctuated motifs. While Jensen already has won JUNO awards in Canada for best jazz album, Harbour raises the bar. That is because it is inspired by deeply personal themes and because her ...
Continue ReadingChristine Jensen: Day Moon
by Pierre Giroux
Christine Jensen has been described by jazz writer Mark Miller of The Globe and Mail as “one of the most important Canadian composers of her generation." Jensen grew up in Nanaimo, British Columbia with the likes of tenor saxophonist Phil Dwyer and pianist & vocalist Diana Krall but is now based in Montreal, Quebec. She originally went to that city to attend McGill University from which she received her first degree in jazz performance in 1994 and, subsequently, a Masters ...
Continue ReadingJean-Michel Pilc: Symphony
by Dan Bilawsky
On November 28, 2021, at the completion of a two-day recording session for Galician saxophonist Xose Miguélez's Contradictio (Origin, 2022) at CARA-OJM Studios in Matosinhos, Portugal, pianist Jean-Michel Pilc had a little time on his hands. And with a gorgeous Steinway right in front of him, beautiful acoustics in the room and engineer José Trincado at the ready to record, it proved to be the perfect opportunity to explore the moment. The result, a stunning statement on subliminal complexities and ...
Continue ReadingChet Doxas: Rich in Symbols II
by Troy Dostert
One of Chet Doxas' more distinctive projects, Rich in Symbols (Ropeadope, 2017), involved the saxophonist/clarinetist engaging the 1980s art movement of New York's Lower East Side, composing pieces that reflected his deep interactions with some of those iconic paintings. Now he has done the same with artists from his native Canada: specifically, the Group of Seven, a movement of landscape artists who were active from the early 1910s through the first years of the 1930s. By selecting several of their ...
Continue ReadingTaurey Butler: One Of The Others
by Mike Jurkovic
An East Orange, New Jersey native now firmly entrenched in the Montreal jazz scene, pianist Taurey Butler's approach to his music and that of others (Charlie Chaplin's eternal “Smile," The Beatle's “Can't Buy Me Love," Stevie Wonder's “I Can Only Be Me," and Cole Porter's “What Is This Thing Called Love?") strides across generations and genres to bubble up as an assured, soulful, and full-bodied sound. Butler's self-titled debut on Justin Time Records was released in 2011. Now ...
Continue ReadingCODE Quartet: Genealogy
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Chordless or not, quartets tend to find a way around the necessity of vertical simultaneousness to create significant harmonies. With the Montreal-based Code Quartet it's the former variety of instrumentation, combining a vital rhythm section of drum and bass with two horns, much like Ornette Coleman's groundbreaking quartet or its logical continuation in the group Old and New Dreams. The music of Genealogy, made up almost exclusively of originals--hold the traditional “O Sacred head, Now Wounded," harmonized by Johann Sebastian ...
Continue ReadingDoxas Brothers: The Circle
by Dan Bilawsky
Family figures squarely into The Circle. For tenor saxophonist Chet Doxas and drummer Jim Doxas, brotherhood is both a literal and figurative tie. These siblings have been playing music together in various configurations from their earliest days, so their bonds truly extend from blood to bandstand. And with their father manning the board for this quartet session recorded at the family homestead in Pointe Claire, QC, it's all Doxases on deck. This album's title references the crescent ...
Continue ReadingMaria Mendes: Close To Me
by Dan Bilawsky
A great affection for fado music and its poetic lyrics, an appreciation for how a jazz palette can color the form, and a love of orchestral seasonings all influence this expansive outing from Maria Mendes. It's an effort that's far from the norm and right where the Portuguese vocalist lives and loves to be. Teaming up with pianist/arranger extraordinaire John Beasley, Mendes delivers originals, fado favorites, and, for good measure, a new number written for her by ...
Continue ReadingEmma Frank: Come Back
by Friedrich Kunzmann
It takes most artists many years and several tries (accompanied by one mishap or another) to turn the search for momentum within a composition into something elegant in which the understated beauty manifests itself naturally, as if it had always been there. New York-based singer-songwriter Emma Frank already reached that point on her third effort, last year's Ocean Av (Justin Time Records 2018). Drenched in a light RnB touch which saw her whispy falsetto accompanied by melodic piano motifs, the ...
Continue ReadingSteve Haines: And the Third Floor Orchestra
by Jerome Wilson
In the Fifties and Sixties it was very common to have jazz recordings that would feature a vocal or instrumental soloist like Ella Fitzgerald or Stan Getz in front of a full orchestra. That still happens today but nowhere as frequently as it once did. Bassist and composer Steve Haines revives that tradition with an amazing session that sets vocalist Becca Stevens, saxophonist Chad Eby and pianist Joey Calderazzo against the warm, surging sounds of a string-laden full orchestra.
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