Jazz Articles

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Erik Telford: Kinetic

by Joshua Weiner
May 18, 2010

From the vibrant music scene of Austin, Texas comes Kinetic, the excellent solo recording debut of trumpeter/bandleader Erik Telford. The album features seven memorable, groove-heavy original tunes by the leader, played by a crack ensemble that contributes characterful comping and soloing galore. The band's sound lies somewhere between that of Miles Davis's bands of the early seventies and the more straightforward, four-on-the-floor jazz/funk styles of today, but with a level of musicianship, exemplified by exhilarating, lengthy solos, that sets it ...

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Arild Andersen: Green Into Blue - Early Quartets

by John Kelman
May 18, 2010

He's one of Norway's “Big Four"—a group of artists who, with the assistance of the emerging ECM label in the early 1970s, kick-started international focus on the music from a country that, despite its relatively small population, has become a truly vital force in the evolution of jazz over the past 40 years. Alongside saxophonist Jan Garbarek, guitarist Terje Rypdal and drummer Jon Christensen—as well as Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson—bassist Arild Andersen has been responsible for a real paradigm shift, ...

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Take Five With Paula Harris

by AAJ Staff
May 18, 2010

Meet Paula Harris: A professional vocalist for 20 years, Paula has worked with several Symphony Orchestras including the Long Bay Symphony (South Carolina)and the Atlanta Pops Symphony (Georgia). She fronted one of the most well-known orchestras in Georgia, with the Carere Orchestras for a decade. Paula has won five national and international singing competitions. For the last two years she has been performing with Grammy and People's Choice pianist Ricardo Scales and at San Francisco's Top of the ...

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Jackson Browne / David Lindley: Love Is Strange

by Doug Collette
May 18, 2010

Jackson Browne and David Lindley's Love Is Strange isn't merely a clever reworking of familiar material. On the contrary, it is brilliantly conceived and executed reinterpretation of songs in which the principals and their comrades display as much respect for each other as musicians as they do the extraordinary compositions themselves.

Recorded over five nights of concerts in Spain during March of 2006, this double-CD reunites Browne and Lindley, who collaborated as band mates during most of the seventies and ...

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Earl MacDonald: Re:Visions

by Woodrow Wilkins
May 18, 2010

In a period when many new recordings feature trios, quartets or other small ensembles, it's refreshing when a full-size orchestra comes along. Pianist, composer and arranger Earl MacDonald offers that refreshment with Re:Visions--Works for Jazz Orchestra. MacDonald is a native of Winnipeg, Canada and director of jazz studies at the University of Connecticut. A winner of several awards, MacDonald spent two years as musical director, pianist and arranger for the Maynard Ferguson Big Bop Nouveau Band. He composed ...

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Chick Corea: Solo Piano

by John Kelman
May 18, 2010

It may be Keith Jarrett and Paul Bley who, with Facing You (1972) and Open, To Love (1973) respectively, put ECM on the map for what would become a lifelong focus on the art of solo piano, but it was Chick Corea's Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 (1971) and Vol. 2 (1972) that represented the label's first released exploration of a nexus where in-the-moment improvisation and, in some cases, preconceived form could meet to create a new kind of spontaneous composition ...

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Regina Carter: Reverse Thread

by Mark F. Turner
May 17, 2010

What does the award-winning, classically trained, jazz violinist Regina Carter do, after playing Niccolo Paganini's famous Guarneri “Cannon" violin in Paganini: After a Dream (Verve Music Group, 2003), or reinterpreting songs from the 1920s-1940s in I'll Be Seeing You ( Verve Music Group, 2006)? She directs her interests and passion towards African folk music in Reverse Thread, a significant work in her already diverse discography. A 2006 MacArthur Fellow, Carter took full advantage of the very generous ...

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Allison Miller: Breaking Ground

by Franz A. Matzner
May 17, 2010

It takes a rare individual to excel in multiple artistic genres, particularly when success unfolds in the public spotlight and presents very different contexts. Certainly technical ability is important, but it also takes a peculiar blend of flexibility, curiosity, and determination. Perhaps that is what makes drummer, composer, bandleader, and outspoken feminist Allison Miller such a charismatic musician and personality. As a drummer, she has distinguished herself in both the jazz and singer-songwriter genres, playing with some ...

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Odean Pope: Odean's List

by Dan Bilawsky
May 17, 2010

Odean Pope Odean's List In+Out Records 2009

Saxophonist Odean Pope is probably one of the most underappreciated jazz musicians of his generation. While Pope is most often cited for his long tenure with drummer Max Roach, his own recordings--from trio outings to his explosive saxophone choir albums--show a tough-toned tenor titan who writes and scores brilliantly for groups of any size and plays his heart out on every occasion. Pope came up on the ...

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Jacky Terrasson: Push

by Raul d'Gama Rose
May 17, 2010

There are three qualities about pianist Jacky Terrasson's music that make it irresistible and riveting. The first is that it dances interminably. Secondly, it is jagged and angular--an epithet often used to describe the music of Thelonious Monk and which suits Terrasson well as, even with his singularly distinctive voice, he is genealogically connected. Finally, Terrasson has a penchant for a playful, almost puckish, interpretation, where humor is implicit. As such he negotiates all melodies, even those that are contemplative, ...