Jazz Articles

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James Blood Ulmer: In And Out

by Dan Bilawsky
May 20, 2010

The title of this record is simultaneously a tip of the hat toward the record label which released it and an appropriate explanation of the music contained within. James Blood Ulmer's sound resides at the crossroads where Jimi Hendrix's blues-rock collides with Ornette Coleman's music; where gutsy blues songs meet the avant-garde. His voice bears some similarity to Hendrix's--with a little bit of Richie Havens' low end thrown in and a primordial blues delivery that's earth-shaking, brilliant, and increasingly expressive ...

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Bobby Zankel, Warriors of the Wonderful Sound, and Rudresh Mahanthappa at Montgomery County Community College

by Victor L. Schermer
May 20, 2010

Bobby Zankel and the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound with Special Guest Rudresh MahanthappaScience Center Theater, Montgomery County Community CollegeBlue Bell, PennsylvaniaMay 8, 2010

This concert offered a stimulating blast of music from the outer stratosphere of modern jazz, performed by cutting-edge musicians who are among a handful who can truly make it happen. It consisted of two original compositions: the first, by Bobby Zankel, was entitled “Ndura: The Forest is Our Father and Mother"; ...

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Joe Chambers: Horace to Max

by John Kelman
May 20, 2010

Though best known for his drum work on key 1960s Blue Note sessions with artists including vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Andrew Hill and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Joe Chambers has gradually built a reputation as an equally distinctive composer and mallet player. Horace to Max is more heavily weighted towards cover material from Shorter, bassist Marcus Miller, pianist Thelonious Monk and trumpeter Kenny Dorham--and, of course, its two titular legends, pianist Horace Silver and drummer Max Roach--but it does maintain an ...

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Lua Hadar with TWIST at the Cornelia Street Café, NYC

by Marc Nieson
May 20, 2010

Lua Hadar with TWISTJazz with a Twist of Français Cornelia Street Café New York, New York April 24, 2010

Say chanteuse and what comes to mind? A smoky Parisian cellar? A rain-slicked side street in Montmartre? Edith Piaf poised before a thick microphone, spilling her ever-rallying soul for romance and La Resistance?

Well, if you were fortunate enough to catch Lua Hadar with TWIST at the Cornelia Street Café Cabaret on the night of April ...

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Take Five With Jeff Antoniuk

by AAJ Staff
May 20, 2010

Meet Jeff Antoniuk: Saxophonist Jeff Antoniuk is an internationally respected jazz composer and musician whose concerts and recordings are consistently well received by critics. His latest CD, Brotherhood, is out in May of 2010. Antoniuk has shared the stage with U.S. hitmakers Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Freddie Hubbard, Najee and Marcus Miller. He's worked with Canadian greats PJ Perry, Senator Tommy Banks, big band leader Rob McConnell and David Foster.

A dedicated teaching artist, Antoniuk has been ...

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Rhett Frazier, Inc.: Escape from Dee-Troyt

by Chris M. Slawecki
May 20, 2010

At first, singer-songwriter Rhett Frazier and producer-drummer Donny Gruender “incorporated" this joint retro-futuristic soul side project just to play around, nothing more than a diversion from their Los Angeles studio session work (Gruender, for example, rocks beats for the Motown house band, the Funk Brothers). But their Escape quickly evolved into its own full-blown monster: Two modernists using hip-hop cut and paste methods to recombine the stylistic DNA of rhythm and rock.

The Motor City gave jazz Yusef ...

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John Fedchock NY Sextet: Live at the Red Sea Jazz Festival

by Woodrow Wilkins
May 20, 2010

It was a performance that began at 1:00 AM in the heat of the desert, but if the sound is any indication, the John Fedchock NY Sextet was cool during its recording of Live at the Red Sea Jazz Festival. Fedchock is a composer, arranger and trombonist who earned a Grammy nomination in 2002 for No Nonsense (Reservoir Music), recorded with his big band. After critical acclaim for Hit the Bricks (Reservoir Music, 2000), he formed the NY ...

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Taylor Ho Bynum & Tomas Fujiwara: Stepwise

by John Sharpe
May 19, 2010

Taylor Ho Bynum is one of the most inventive and exciting trumpeters of his generation. Well known for his association with such seminal figures as Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor and Bill Dixon, he is also building a substantial body of work in his own right. Stepwise is his second duet with drummer and longtime ally Tomas Fujiwara, after True Events (482 Music, 2007), which made several best of year lists.

This time out there four compositions, two from the, that ...

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Katt Hernandez: Spiral Passes

by Gordon Marshall
May 19, 2010

Katt Hernandez plays violin with a hand and eye versed in the vagaries of natural sound. A student of microtonal music, she is also steeped in European folk traditions, and skilled in classical forms of improvisation. While her work goes in many directions, it stays sharp and swift and supple.

She is equally adept in all modes of musical reasoning. Whether alone or in ensemble, she wraps her mind around her improvised, atonal melodies and anti-melodies, on the ...

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Eric Felten: Seize The Night

by Dan Bilawsky
May 19, 2010

Wycliffe Gordon and Vincent Gardner are two of the best trombone players in the world, and both men also sing, on occasion, with wonderfully soulful voices. Eric Felten, on the other hand, is a crooner who also plays a mean trombone, and does both equally well on Seize The Night. Felten established himself as a fine trombonist early on in his career when he won the International Trombone Association's Frank Rosolino Award for best young trombone. While he continued along ...