Jazz Articles

like 396

Digitial Primitives in Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 15, 2010

Digital Primitives Bezalel Academy Jerusalem, Israel March 25, 2010

There are performances that remind you what are the basic and most important essences of making and listening to music--the sheer and innocent joy of playfulness, the healing power of such an emotional communication, the communal feeling of participating in a magical ritual, and the feeling of inspiring elation that lasts after the concert. The recent Digital Primitives trio show in Jerusalem was ...

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Take Five with Erik Telford

by AAJ Staff
April 15, 2010

Meet Erik Telford: A native of Pacific Grove (CA), Telford has performed as a sideman or leader at the Monterey, Montreux, North Sea, Melbourne, and Yokohama Honmoku jazz festivals. He's shared the stage with Bill Berry, George Bohannan, Maria Schneider, Joshua Redman, James Williams, Jon Faddis, Wynton Marsalis, and Louie Bellson, among other artists. Telford currently lives in Austin where he is an active member of the local music scene leading both the Erik Telford Collective (ETC) and Hellfire Horns, ...

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Enoch Smith, Jr.: Church boy

by Javier AQ Ortiz
April 15, 2010

Pianist and composer Enoch Smith, Jr. appears in the recorded jazz landscape fully blossomed, ripened and in full swing. His thrilling ChurchBboy bears a brazen and welcomed Christian musical engraving that offers proof of expected influences from classical, soul, gospel music and the Protestant Christian hymnody. However, there's no denying the Latin and Caribbean tinges, such as on the reggae-like “Untitled (No Words)." In a repertoire that pretty much divides itself neatly in half between lively and mid-tempo material, just ...

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Mikan Zlatkovich: Come Together

by Dee Dee McNeil
April 15, 2010

Although The Beatles' “Come Together" is a commercially apropos title for keyboardist Mikan Zlatkovich's premier CD, it's his original compositions that are the highlights. “Four Plus One" is upbeat and very funky, with Zlatkovich employing a Yamaha ES90X keyboard to punch the rhythm while singing a repeatable melody hook with his busy right hand. The trio's rendition of Stevie Wonder's less-known “Moments Aren't Moments," from The Woman In Red (Motown, 1984) soundtrack, is beautifully introduced with a driving bass line--and ...

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Claudio Fasoli Emerald Quartet: Venice Inside

by Ian Patterson
April 14, 2010

On Venice Inside, saxophonist Claudio Fasoli pays homage to the city of his birth. The song titles reveal that Fasoli's inspiration comes from the storied past, the stunning architecture and the unique atmosphere of the churches, plazas, cobbled streets, bridges, waterways and islands which make up the soul of this one-of-a-kind city.

In times past, when Venice was an independent republic, it was known as La Serenissima (the most serene)--in spite of centuries of conflict and war. Nevertheless, the biggest ...

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Steve Colson: Doing Jazz Justice

by Gordon Marshall
April 14, 2010

As well as being a great music educator, Steve Colson is one of the most versatile jazz pianists of the last forty years, with a grasp of idioms ranging from swing to free, and from European romanticism to new music. What's more, he is a master of compression, incorporating these sources into solos and compositions with the balance of a fine blended coffee. Colson has never been one to trumpet his own achievements, nor is he ...

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ART-i-Facts: Great Performances from 40 Years of Jazz at NEC

by Raul d'Gama Rose
April 14, 2010

Various Artists ART-i-Facts: Great Performances from 40 Years of Jazz at NEC New England Conservatory 2010

For almost 150 years the New England Conservatory has been a repository of learning for musicians from around the world. The institution has maintained a fine sense of history and 40 years ago began a long and intense love affair with Afro-American music, when it became the first major conservatory in the country with a fully accredited Jazz ...

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Mandrake Project: A Miraculous Container

by Jack Huntley
April 14, 2010

If the trick to creating an unique musical identity is to grab from your influences without dissipating into hollow gesture, then Mandrake Project has created a singular musical personality on A Miraculous Container. Featuring an array of guest musicians, Mandrake Project's six full-time members provide a wealth of instrumental ability and vision, not to mention a talent at expressing wide ranging musical vernaculars. Often described as cinematic or progressive, Mandrake Project's style is not limited to any one genre but ...

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Kallerdahl / Seglem / Ulvo / Hole / Sjovaag: Skoddeheimen

by John Kelman
April 14, 2010

With NORSKjazz.no (Ozella Music, 2009), veteran saxophonist, producer, label head and goat horn virtuoso Karl Seglem brought a distinctive Norwegian flavor to the conventional sax/piano/bass/drums format. By recruiting younger players, Seglem ensured the continuance of his country's jazz tradition--one as imbued by folkloric elements and dark classicism as it is the American vernacular--through the increasingly endangered process of mentoring. For NORSKJazz.no, Seglem enlisted the preexistent chemistry of Eple Trio, whose The Widening Sphere of Influence, released on Seglem's own NORCD ...

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Africa Rising: Angelique Kidjo at Town Hall NYC

by David Miller
April 14, 2010

Angelique KidjoTown HallNew York, New YorkMarch 26, 2010Angelique Kidjo's album Oyo (Razor & Tie, 2010) includes guest vocal appearances from the likes of John Legend and Dianne Reeves. At Town Hall, without the services of Legend or Reeves, Kidjo sung the entirety of Curtis Mayfield's “Move On Up" and Aretha Franklin's “Baby I Love You" all by her lonesome. Was the audience missing something? Not at all. The sheer power of Kidjo's voice and her ...