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Organissimo: Alive & Kickin'
by Chris M. Slawecki
The title of Organissimo's first live recording, Alive & Kickin', is a great description of how a guitar/organ trio live record should sound. Just about everything on this set comes homegrown by this Michigan trio: organ player Jim Alfredson met guitarist Joe Gloss in a Michigan State University (MSU) jazz class; the duo eventually became a trio completed by drummer Randy Marsh, whose experience playing for organists Jimmy Smith and Shirley Scott proved invaluable to the band's soulful yet freestyle ...
Continue Reading...Jazz Education Conference 2011 to Unite Industry
by Dawn DeBlaze
New Orleans hosts JEN's annual conferenceOnly one, comprehensive, international jazz trade event is designed to bring together everyone in the jazz music community: The Jazz Education Network (JEN) Conference. Scheduled for January 6-8, 2011, and located adjacent to the French Quarter in New Orleans, the conference seeks to build upon the momentum of its inaugural conference. According to JEN President and Co-Founder Dr. Lou Fischer, the organization “expects 2,500-3,000 in attendance at the Roosevelt Waldorf-Astoria next ...
Continue Reading...Vandermark 5 Special Edition: The Horse Jumps And The Ship Is Gone
by John Sharpe
In their early days, the Vandermark 5 gave founder and reed man Ken Vandermark, the opportunity to workshop and road test fresh ideas. His writing skills have now been honed to such an extent that he is one of the most consistently inventive small group composers around, and the V5 has become one of the great working bands on the current scene. For its eighteenth, outing the quintet is expanded to a seven-piece Special Edition, with the addition of trumpeter ...
Continue Reading...Search and Restore Benefit: A Round Robin of Duo Improvisations
by Daniel Lehner
There's an old conundrum about a man with an axe. He broke the head chopping at a particularly stubborn branch and replaced it. Months later, he broke the handle and replaced that. The question goes: Does he have the same axe? It's a philosophical question that deals with how parts interrelate with a whole. Now imagine that each axe head/handle gets stronger and more unique with the new part that accompanies it.Such was the logic of Search and Restore's ...
Continue Reading...Tassos Spiliotopoulos: Archipelagos
by Ian Patterson
Since moving to London in 2000 to study music, Greek guitarist Tassos Spiliotopoulos has built a solid reputation as a technically gifted musician, building an impressive résumé of collaborations in a relatively short time, working with drummer/keyboardist Gary Husband, saxophonist Tim Garland, singer/multi-instrumentalist Eileen Hunter and guitarists John Parricelli, Mike Outram and John Etheridge. His debut as leader, Wait for Dusk (Konnex Records, 2006), featuring bassist Yaron Stavi, drummer Asaf Sirkis, and tenor saxophonist Robin Fincker, garnered positive reviews for ...
Continue Reading...Take Five With Michael Arlt
by AAJ Staff
Meet Michael Arlt:Appearing on numerous concert tours, festivals and CDs since 1986, guitarist Michael Arlt has been working with an expanding group of international musicians, including Red Holloway, Paquito D`Rivera, Houston Person, Dan Kostelnik & We Three, José Cortijo, Luciano Biondini, Tony Lakatos, Mathias Ruegg, Adrian Mears,Jon Sass, Portinho Trio: Klaus Mueller, Itaiguara Brandao, Portinho. Touring in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Germany and the US, Arlt`s music has been showcased on a ...
Continue Reading...Ben Wolfe: Live At Smalls
by Dan Bilawsky
Smalls jazz club entered the CD market in a big way in 2010, releasing a series of albums documenting live performances at this venerable Greenwich village institution. While Smalls Records already had a hand in showcasing the musicians and scene surrounding this club, Smalls Live is all about presenting the music as it happened on any given night in the club. The label has already released a bounty of brass-lead sessions by the likes of trombonist Steve Davis and trumpeters ...
Continue Reading...Ed Puddick Big Band: Guys and Dolls
by Robert J. Robbins
In the hands of the twenty-something bandleader and arranger Ed Puddick and his equally young, London-based seventeen-piece ensemble, Frank Loesser's classic Broadway score joins the ranks of those which have been adapted for big band (Stan Kenton's West Side Story, Les Brown's South Pacific, and Ted Heath's The Sound of Music all come to mind). Puddick's writing combines the lush voicings of Gil Evans' arrangements for the late 1940s Claude Thornhill band with Bill Holman's linear counterpoint, Shorty Rogers' Basie-inspired ...
Continue Reading...Gerry Gibbs: Gerry Gibbs & the Electric Thrasher Orchestra Play the Music of Miles Davis 1967-1975
by Chris M. Slawecki
Among other callings, drummer/percussionist and bandleader Gerry Gibbs serves as occasional “aural historian" of the mercurial music of Miles Davis. Gibbs' most recent tribute to one of the most controversial and notorious segments of Davis' career--fusion explorations that began to expand jazz with Nefertitti (Columbia) in 1967 and continued to stretch past even its most elastic points with Get Up With It nearly a decade later--honors Davis' artistic spirit, approach, and some of his most electrifying music.Plays The ...
Continue Reading...Geoff Vidal: She Likes That
by Leonard Epstein
Combine Sonny Rollins, Chris Potter and Joe Henderson, and mix it with some exciting originality you'll arrive somewhere near Geoff Vidal. Vidal, who regularly can be heard in New York West Village jazz haunts such as Fat Cat, debuts his first album as leader, She Likes That. This seven-composition set consists of all original music, penned by Vidal or his guitarist, Joe Hundertmark. Vidal's compositions are ripe with jazz tradition, yet employ contemporary fixtures such as odd ...
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