Jazz Articles

like 332

Stanton Moore: Groove Alchemy

by Doug Collette
May 1, 2010

Groove Alchemy is not only the perfect title for Stanton Moore's album, it effectively sums up the unique means by which he makes music. The rhythm he conjures up morphs into melody then back again in such as remarkable natural fashion, it almost (but not quite) defies description.

It's voodoo of some kind the way Moore hammers out the beat of the first two tracks, “Squash Blossom" and “Pie Eyed Manc," only to have them shape-shift into the ...

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Take Five with Joel Fairstein

by AAJ Staff
May 1, 2010

Meet Joel Fairstein: Hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, Joel Fairstein has earned critical praise as jazz pianist, composer, producer, and studio musician. His first album, Umbra, an LP recorded at age 24 with eighteen sidemen has since become a sought-after collectors item.Joel graduated from Berklee college in 1983 and freelanced regularly in Boston before performing cruise ship gigs in the Bahamas and Hawaii. Returning to Knoxville in 1985, Joel began an extended period of engagements with his ...

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Cosa Brava: Ragged Atlas

by Mark Corroto
May 1, 2010

In the last forty years, no one has been about to categorize just what exactly Fred Frith music is. His seminal early work with the British prog-rock band Henry Cow--along with the likes of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart--developed the idea rock artists could also be accomplished and serious musicians. Later he founded the New York Downtown scene with John Zorn, Tom Cora, Gary Lucas, and Thomas Chapin. His continuing interests accompany the worlds of free improvisation, film music, chamber ...

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Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition: Apti

by Karl Ackermann
May 1, 2010

Jazz has been a well-established genre in India since the 1940s. American talent played top venues in large cities like Bombay in the '50s, and the cultures interrelated within India's natural jazz evolution from its early stages. Traditional Indian music uses single notes rather than the intricate chords typical in western jazz, so when saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa combines those inspirations the result is absorbing. Despite overtly displaying an Indian influence throughout Apti, Mahanthappa doesn't approach his music like some new ...

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Larry Willis: Reaching and Teaching

by Russ Musto
May 1, 2010

In a career spanning five decades, Larry Willis has amassed one the most impressive resumes in jazz, including tenures with Jackie McLean, Hugh Masekela, Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Stan Getz, Carla Bley, Roy Hargrove, Jimmy Cobb's So What Sextet and Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, testifying to the high esteem in which he is held by his peers. Yet despite a substantial discography including scores of sideman appearances and over twenty dates as a leader, the gifted pianist/composer ...

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Pe'z: 1.2.MAX

by Ian Patterson
April 30, 2010

As the title of Pe'z's 1. 2. MAX reflects, the adrenalin kicks in quickly and doesn't let up. This five-piece band from Japan, which has been together for ten years, purveys a brand of high energy, groove-based anarcho-jazz which takes jazz- funk, ska and the irreverence of punk as its references. In terms of energy and originality, Pe'z is reminiscent of English band Acoustic Ladyland.

The opening bars of 19th century German composer Hermann Necke's “Csikos Post," however, ...

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The Jazz Book

by David Rickert
April 30, 2010

The Jazz Book Joachim-Ernst Berendt and Gunther Huesmann Softcover; 816 pages ISBN: 155652823X Lawrence Hill Books 2009

The first edition of The Jazz Book came out in 1952, the earnest work of European jazz scholar Joachim-Ernst Berendt. At the time, of course, saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie were newcomers, trumpeter Miles Davis and saxophonist John Coltrane were hardly on the radar, and thankfully no one had to write ...

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Bill Carrothers: Joy Spring

by Dan McClenaghan
April 30, 2010

Pianist Bill Carrothers has narrowed his often expansive focus. Where the marvelous and career-defining Armistice 1918 (Sketch Records, 2004) concerned itself with the scope of World War I, and I Love Paris (Pirouet Records, 2005) explored popular songs from the twenties through the forties, Joy Spring zeros in on a smaller slice of a more recent history: the music of died-too-young hard bop trumpeter Clifford Brown.Brown (b.1930, d. 1956), was a young phenom who enjoyed only a four-year ...

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Tomasz Stanko Quintet at Birdland, April 18, 2010

by Ernest Barteldes
April 30, 2010

Tomasz Stanko Quintet Birdland New York, New York April 18, 2010

The legendary Polish trumpeter took to the stage at New York's Birdland backed by his new band comprising Olavi Louhivuori (drums), Jakob Bro (guitar), Alexi Tuomarila (piano) and Anders Christensen (bass). The set, which featured music mostly from Stanko's recent Dark Eyes (ECM, 2009), proved to be a departure from the kind of material from his previous discs. Gone ...

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Philip Edward Fisher: Handel: Keyboard Suites 1

by C. Michael Bailey
April 30, 2010

Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti (not to mention Francois Couperin and Dieterich Buxtehude) were not the only figures of the High Baroque to compose memorable keyboard music. George Frideric Handel composed two sets of eight keyboard suites each, published in 1720 and 1733, respectively, that remain highly regarded. These suites are comparable to those of Bach (English Suites (BWV 806-811), French Suites, BWV 812-817, Partitas, BWV 825-830) in structure, both men composing in the Baroque suite du danses form ...