Jazz Articles

like 377

Pablo Aslan: Tango Grill

by Jerry D'Souza
April 23, 2010

Bassist Pablo Aslan has long been in the forefront of forging an alliance between jazz and the tango. His approach has been artful, keeping the body of the tango intact while letting jazz take the music into new pastures. His success can be seen in the music he has created with his band, Avantango, and through recordings like Buenos Aires Tango Standards (Zoho Music, 2007). When it was time for him to fire up Tango Grill Aslan went to Buenos ...

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Jazz Kamikaze: Supersonic Revolutions

by Ian Patterson
April 23, 2010

Jazz Kamikaze Supersonic Revolutions Seven Seas Music 2010 JazzKamikaze fairly exploded onto the music scene in 2005 by winning the Young Nordic Jazz Comets. Its first album, Mission 1 (Stunt Records/Sundance Music, 2006), featured high energy hard bop-meets-rock for the new millennium, and pianist Morten Schantz's memorable tunes were peppered with searing solos from the dual spearhead of saxophonist Marius Neset and guitarist Daniel Heloy-Davidsen. The band's second album, ...

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Brandon Wright: Boiling Point

by Bruce Lindsay
April 22, 2010

New York based tenor saxophonist and composer Brandon Wright debuts confidently as a leader on Boiling Point--a strong and enjoyable straight-ahead album that seems set to establish his reputation on the jazz scene. Wright surrounds himself with some fine musicians and makes a judicious and unusual selection of standards to accompany his own tunes, ensuring a consistently high quality recording. The opening riff of “Free Man," played by Wright and trumpeter Alex Sipiagin, starts things off with ...

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Don Preston: Just Another Duo From LA

by Rex Butters
April 22, 2010

Just a few miles east of the Whisky a Go Go, where they stunned the world over 40 years ago with the classic Mothers of Invention, keyboardist Don Preston and saxophonist Bunk Gardner returned to Sunset Blvd. as The Don and Bunk Show, reviving their duo homage to the early music of Frank Zappa. Dolores Petersen Productions brought the terrible two to the Hollywood Studio Bar and Grill to warm up for their east coast tour, which may jump the ...

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Tomasz Stanko At Birdland: A Subtext Of Sadness And Suspended Sounds

by Dan Bilawsky
April 22, 2010

Tomasz Stanko Quintet Birdland New York, NY April 13, 2010

A mixture of eager anticipation and horrible sadness surrounded trumpeter Tomasz Stanko's early April arrival at Birdland. After creating a string of critically acclaimed albums in an acoustic quartet format, Stanko went in a different direction for 2010's Dark Eyes--which features a quintet including electric bass and electric guitar--and this string of shows was to be the first opportunity for New Yorkers to ...

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Adriana Miki: Sashimiki

by Raul d'Gama Rose
April 22, 2010

The spry and sensuous voice of the Brazilian Adriana Miki is beautifully showcased on her debut album, Sashimiki, produced by her bass-playing partner in this project, Sérgio Crestana. Delivering an exquisitely chosen, albeit short, program, Miki emerges with soft grandeur as Astrud Gilberto once did when she voiced the songs of her then husband, Jo&#227o Gilberto. Miki's voice is laden with elemental saudade and shows that Brazil's tradition maintains its long line of emotive ingenuity that recalls the near-mystical bliss ...

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Tomasz Stanko Quintet at Dazzle in Denver

by Geoff Anderson
April 22, 2010

Tomasz Stanko Quintet Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge Denver, CO April 10, 2010

The ECM record label has been issuing innovative music since 1969. Although it has released over 1,000 albums by now, most share an aesthetic that makes their sound instantly recognizable. While usually lumped into the jazz camp, most ECM artists don't “swing" in the traditional jazz sense. However, the music is generally instrumental, improvisational and almost always, quite cerebral. A significant ...

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Little Women: Throat

by John Sharpe
April 22, 2010

Brooklyn-based quartet, Little Women, blasts out of the starting gate with its full length debut on the Aum Fidelity imprint, following up its 2008 EP. The best known of the group's constituent parts to jazz fans is alto saxophonist Darius Jones, whose Man'ish Boy (A Raw and Beautiful Thing), also on Aum Fidelity, was one of 2009's most widely acclaimed releases. But Little Women is such a team focused group that Jones' back catalogue is not a good signpost for ...

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Cape May Jazz Festival's 33rd Edition

by Sandy Ingham
April 22, 2010

Cape May Jazz FestivalCape May, NJApril 16-18, 2010If there's a formula for putting on a successful jazz festival, both artistically and box- office-wise, Cape May's got it.

Need some straight-ahead hard bop: Check: How about Tim Warfield and his quintet's tribute to organist Shirley Scott? Some fusion-ey jazz/pop for those less drawn to more challenging stuff? Check: Spyro Gyra.

Gotta have some blues: Shemekia Copeland will do just fine. And a dose of ...

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Wellstone Conspiracy: Motives

by Dan McClenaghan
April 22, 2010

This ensemble might have been labeled the Brent Jensen Quartet. They recorded One More Mile under the Idaho-based saxophonist's name. For their album Motives, however, they are calling themselves the Wellstone Conspiracy as they delve deeper into a melodic music that is steeped in the modern harmonic concepts of Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.

The set opens with Jeff Johnson's grainy, guitar-like bass lines on the Jensen-penned “Bye Bye Blackwell." The late Ed Blackwell was, perhaps most famously, Ornette Coleman's ...