Jazz Articles
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Take Five With Simone Gubbiotti
by AAJ Staff
Meet Simone Gubbiotti: Played and recorded with Joe LaBarbera, Darek Oles, Marco Panascia, Sid Jacobs, Tim Welvaars. Coming up next album with Peter Erskine on drums and Oles on bass. Instrument(s): Guitar. Teachers and/or influences? Joe Diorio, Sid Jacobs, Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter... and many, many others...I knew I wanted to be a musician when. . . I knew that when I went to ...
Continue Reading...Trevor Watts & Veryan Weston: 5 More Dialogues
by John Eyles
The title 5 More Dialogues indicates that this is a sequel to 6 Dialogues (Emanem, 2002), the album which marked saxophonist Trevor Watts' first free improv recording in about two decades. In the years since the release of 6 Dialogues, Watts and pianist Veryan Weston have become an established improvising duo, although their musical association dates back to 1982, when Weston became a member of Watts' Moiré Music. The length of time they have been collaborating gives their music a ...
Continue Reading...Nils Okland / Sigbjorn Apeland: Lysoen: Hommage a Ole Bull
by John Kelman
The problem with being tagged as traditional is an inherent and immediate perception as being somehow retro or backwards-looking when, in truth, traditions ought to be living, breathing things whose definable frames of reference aren't necessarily confined by them. Norwegian violinist Nils Økland and pianist/harmonium player Sigbjørn Apeland know this better than most; in their 1982 trio, with drummer Øyvind Skarbo, they mine a most contemporary kind of free improvisation that can't help but be informed by the traditional Norwegian ...
Continue Reading...Freddie Hubbard: Pinnacle
by Larry Taylor
Trumpet great Freddie Hubbard, who died in 2008 at age 70, was at his peak in 1980 when Pinnacle was taped. He had recorded with greats, from Wes Montgomery and Art Blakey to John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Oscar Peterson, and led many groups of his own. In his prime, from the sixties through the early nineties, critics acknowledged that he could play faster. and with more chops, than most anyone. His best playing days ended in ...
Continue Reading...Take Five With Dave Scoven
by AAJ Staff
Meet Dave Scoven: Dave Scoven is an avant-garde composer/percussionist from Richmond, Virginia. Dave released Drum set Meditations: Solo Compositions for Film and Dance in July, 2011. Drum set Meditations is a collection of 15 spontaneous solo compositions for drums and percussion. The compositions are themselves rhythmic meditations, influenced primarily by rhythms and tones from Eastern and South-Central Asia--northern India, Japan, China and Tibet.Dave also plays drums in the improvisational jazz/world fusion duo Tele-Phonic, currently lives in ...
Continue Reading...Ray Anderson / Han Bennink / Christy Doran: A B D
by Glenn Astarita
In the '90s, this trio ascended to the upper echelon of all things considered cutting-edge in the wide open world of jazz and improvisation. This reissue is a compilation featuring all of Azurety (hatART, 1994) and three tracks culled from Cheer Up (hatART, 1995). Other than his superior improvisational faculties, Irish guitarist Christy Doran could give most metal or jazz-fusion guitarists a run for their money. The album boasts a consortium of jazz-blues overtones; tenacious three-way dialogues; free-form ...
Continue Reading...Take Five With Joe Blessett
by AAJ Staff
Meet Joe Blessett: Started out on alto sax, put it down pick up a six-string, got real and got day job. Now just a civilian making good noise in my spare time. Thanks to advances in technology and changes in the music industry I am afforded the opportunity to develop and produce my own unique sound. I don't do well in crowds, fat chance you will ever see me on a stage. Instrument(s): Saxophone, ...
Continue Reading...Brian Lynch and Spheres Of Influence: ConClave Vol. 2
by Dan Bilawsky
Trumpeter Brian Lynch's ConClave Vol. 2 arrives six years after the first installment and, while the personnel are completely different on each date, both volumes boast collections of intelligent arrangements that juxtapose Latin rhythms and Afro-Cuban musical elements against modern jazz ideals. Lynch's ability to create hybrid forms of music that blend seemingly dissimilar elements with ease comes into play on this second volume, and the musicians that he selects for the date reflect this melting pot mindset.
Continue Reading...Various Artists: Johnny Boy Would Love This…A Tribute to John Martyn
by John Kelman
With the release of Heaven and Earth (Hole in the Rain, 2011), it seems that the world has heard the last of John Martyn, who passed away in 2009 a few months shy of his 61st birthday. This most personal of singer/songwriters has left a remarkable legacy, and while Johnny Boy Would Love This...A Tribute to John Martyn covers 30 of his best songs, it still doesn't hit all of them, speaking to a rare prolificacy in Martyn's first two ...
Continue Reading...Pi-Hsien Chen: Arnold Schonberg - Works for Piano
by Raul d'Gama Rose
The very first striking aspect of Arnold Schönberg's Works for Piano, is that few of these piano pieces are longer than a few minutes; some of them, the fragments, are not even that long. However, their impact goes far beyond bringing absolute delight to the ear; these are works of a highly evolved artist, whose significance as perhaps the central composer of the twentieth century cannot be understated. The oeuvre represented on this album comprises his entire piano repertoire--all of ...
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