Inside the Songs
Serious listening to jazz can be intimate and intense, but sometimes wouldn't you love to tap into the thoughts of the composer/player. Surely, this knowledge would increase the aural experience several-fold, thereby fertilizing the narcotic poppy of listening pleasure. Here, you will read about one artist, one album and what is "Inside the Songs."
Dave Anderson: Plays with Gusto
by Dean Nardi
Gusto! Vigorous and enthusiastic. Implies doing something with great spirit and energy. From the Spanish, gusto indicates taste, pleasure or liking, and that, friends, wraps and puts a bow around what you hear from New York-based soprano and tenor saxophonist Dave Anderson on his uplifting In Lieu of Flowers album (Label1, 2025). Anderson needed no warmup for the record, launching immediately into “Outer Circle," displaying the tight harmonic camaraderie between the leader and the rest of the quartet. ...
Continue ReadingGustavo Cortiñas Inspires Unity and Empathy Through Music
by Dean Nardi
The renowned French writer Victor Hugo once wrote that “music is noise that thinks." Hugo was highlighting the profound and intellectual nature of music, suggesting that while it may seem like disorganized sound ("noise"), it carries deep meaning and expresses complex ideas and emotions that can only be conveyed through this medium. Hugo also wrote of music which expresses what cannot remain silent. And on that note, we come to the project of Chicago-based drummer and composer Gustavo ...
Continue ReadingTropos: Outer Space Chamber Music
by Dean Nardi
Upon first listen to Switches (Endectomorph, 2024), the remarkable album from the group Tropos, one could imagine being caught in the traffic circle at the Arc de Triomphe. The clarinet blares, the violin evokes the squeal of rubber, the drums maintain the churning sound of the motors, while the piano searches for a safe exit. Is it madness or a loosely choreographed palette of sounds? Towards the end of the record, you listen to the beautiful violin and horn duet ...
Continue ReadingMatthieu Chazarenc Evokes Bel Canto, Singing and Celebration
by Dean Nardi
The music has its source in Matthieu Chazarenc's natal southwest of France. The Paris-based drummer has offered his unique blend of jazz, classical and multi-rhythmic versatility on Canto III (Bonsai Music, 2024), linked to his first two albums as a leader--Canto II (Cristal Records, 2021) and Canto I (Jazz Family, 2018). “I like to be able to work over time," he said. “Things take time to build."The colorful jazz emanates from the fruits of encounters with his core ...
Continue ReadingJulian Shore: Sharing Secrets Under The Rose
by Dean Nardi
Piano trios walk the thin line between exhibitionism and intimacy, and you can look no further than Bill Evans whose tones vibrated ever so slightly with the distant thrill of zeal. Despite insistent attempts to overlook its worthiness in contemporary jazz, the piano trio is alive and well, in good hands with pianists such as Kris Davis, whose Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic Records, 2024) with Robert Hurst and Johnathan Blake sends shivers up and down the spine. The Sunna Gunnlaug ...
Continue ReadingLaMP: The Three Of Me Blend Into One Of Us
by Dean Nardi
LaMP's rousing albums have a knack for keeping you listening, whether it is Russ Lawton propelling the trio along through punchy, substantial snare, Ray Paczkowski indulging in the inner point-of-view of melody and harmony on both organ and clavinet, or Scott Metzger inserting reveal after reveal in a twist-laden odyssey of gleeful, darting notes. But there is more to LaMP than all-out propulsion. Yes, at times the songs groove like there is rocket fuel baked into the amps, but the ...
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