Jazz Articles

Jentsch Group Quartet: Fractured Pop

by Jerome Wilson
April 20, 2017

Chris Jentsch is a guitarist who, from the evidence of this recording, enjoys splashing around in the wide pool of music between jazz and rock. His work here goes all the way from grooving hardcore jazz to ambient nature sounds with a lot of fun things going on in between those two poles. The title track starts out on a folkish acoustic guitar riff joined to Matt Renzi's climbing tenor sax, establishing an overall style of jazz improvisation ...

Jentsch Group Large: Brooklyn Suite

by Michael P. Gladstone
March 13, 2008

Guitarist/composer/arranger Chris Jentsch has produced a highly original forty-five minute work in the titular Brooklyn Suite, as well as two other new compositions. Jentsch has lived in the New York borough of Brooklyn since 1999 and pays homage to the sights and sounds of his adopted home. Jentsch did the same for another city on Miami Suite (Blue Schist, 1999).

Brooklyn Suite is an ambitious work, impressive in its creativity. The influence of the orchestral writing ...

Jentsch Group Large: Brooklyn Suite

by Mark F. Turner
January 27, 2008

A resurgence and appreciation of large ensemble jazz suites is on the rise, as witnessed in the acclaim attending recordings such as the Maria Schneider Orchestra's Grammy nominated Sky Blue(ArtistShare,2007). But while scores for larger collectives are not unusual, it is less common to find them centered on orchestra and guitar. Enter Brooklyn Suite by guitarist/composer, Chris Jentsch, who helms just such a group, articulating his statement of “what my life sounds like" in Brooklyn, New York. ...

Jentsch Group Large: Brooklyn Suite

by Graham L. Flanagan
January 16, 2008

It's nice to see that some of that grant-money floating around out there is being put to good use. Such is the case with guitarist Chris Jentsch's Brooklyn Suite, a 2005 live recording of a complex-yet-highly rewarding suite for 18-piece ensemble. Underwritten by the American Composers Forum and the Jerome Foundation, the project takes full advantage of these resources. Jentsch's ambitiousness pays off with a work that, while at times bordering on the modal and even atonal, ends up overall ...