Jazz Articles

like 321

Cindy Blackman: Another Lifetime

by Jeff Winbush
March 24, 2010

When Cindy Blackman took an insult from another musician directed toward her and the late, great drum virtuoso Tony Williams, she got even. She decided that the best revenge would not be to snipe back, but instead to put together a band featuring guitarists Mike Stern and Vernon Reid, tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, and other like-minded souls to recapture the power and glory of Williams' Lifetime band, the seminal group of jazz-rock.

Does everything work to perfection on Another Lifetime? ...

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Mark Lambert: Under My Skin

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 23, 2010

Revisiting classic standards is always somewhat risqué--a challenge, to say the least. Where does the balance between the familiar and the overlooked lie when it comes to repertoire? And how much further can the envelope be pushed without the music being absolutely boorish and unrecognizable? Mark Lambert answers both these questions in spectacular fashion in his remarkable tribute to the jazz standard in Under My Skin by recasting the music in an utterly contemporary and relevant setting, and with a ...

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Barb Jungr: Smart, Sassy, Sexy

by John Eyles
March 23, 2010

Singer Barb Jungr is on a roll at present. In March 2009 she and accompanist Simon Wallace played for the first time at Café Carlyle, in New York City, presenting a show entitled “The Men I Love" which featured songs by the likes of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Todd Rundgren and Neil Diamond. The show received rave reviews and was voted one of the year's best by Time Out New York. The songs from the show formed the ...

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Resonance Records: Non-Profit Jazz Label with a Mission

by Samuel Chell
March 23, 2010

It's a story often heard before: musically, these are the best and worst of times. Only this time, in 2010, it seems different. Even as the pool of fresh talent expands, jazz continues to witness a dearth of venues along with the slump in CD sales. Uncounted numbers of talented musicians, young and otherwise, are reduced to playing in venues--if they can find one--for the door and pocket change. Simultaneously, they are recording, producing and hawking their own CDs; often ...

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Stefano Battaglia / Michele Rabbia: Pastorale

by John Kelman
March 23, 2010

In many ways, Italian piano explorer Stefano Battaglia's work with the German ECM label--beginning with the opaque beauty and greater extremes of 2006's Raccolto, and continuing with 2007's more ambitious and stylistically far-reaching Re: Pasolini--has been leading to this. Pastorale, unlike those previous releases, is a single disc, pared down in other ways as well. Instead of the trios on Raccolto and quintet/sextet of Pasolini, here Battaglia is back with only his longstanding percussionist, Michele Rabbia. The inherent flexibility and ...

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Sylvie Courvoisier / Mark Feldman Quartet: To Fly To Steal

by Glenn Astarita
March 23, 2010

Violinist Mark Feldman and his wife, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier eloquently morph restraint, depth and a contemporary classical touch into the progressive-jazz idiom on this 2010 release. Respectively, the musicians are ceaselessly engaged within the new music style of jazz and improvisation, having recorded for several record labels, spanning several years. No doubt, the duo's venerable artistic propensities unravel in resplendent fashion on To Fly To Steal.

The quartet manifests a self-identity during these emotively imbued works, designed with ...

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Take Five With Dan Dean

by AAJ Staff
March 23, 2010

Meet Dan Dean:Bassist, Sample Library developer, Engineer/Producer. Played with jazz greats like Howard Roberts, Dave Grusin, Stan Getz, Eddie Harris, Eddie “Cleanhead" Vinson, Shelly Manne, B.B. King, Ernestine Anderson, Diane Schuur and others. Created the Dan Dean Sample Libraries for GigaStudio. Wrote and produced the Hal Leonard Electric Bass Method and Studio Series books.Instrument(s):Electric Bass.r>Teachers and/or influences?William O. “Bill" Smith, Howard Roberts. I spent a lot of time ...

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The Opposite: Interwined

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 23, 2010

This Swedish sextet was initiated by Malmö-based French keyboardist Loïc Dequidt and drummer Peter Nilsson--the latter one of the leaders of the Malmö-based Kopasetic Label's musicians collective, which investigates improvisational interplay through a democratic, collective group approach based on a dynamic rhythmic concepts that lean on Indian, African and Cuban traditions. Their instincts proved right since the group's debut, Intertwined, recently won “Best Jazz Album of 2009" at the Swedish indie awards, Manifestgalan.

The immediate references that come to mind ...

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Beleza Brasil: Beleza Brasil

by Mike Neely
March 23, 2010

Genuine joy and exuberance are rare in recorded music. Combine these emotional qualities with savvy vocals and sophisticated musicianship and you've got the beginning of a description of Beleza Brasil. Time To Dream was recorded in Brazil but the band's musical choices reveal a range of styles and influences including jazz, pop, and rhythm and blues. The majority of tracks are Brazilian classics that are delivered with the casual confidence of long familiarity with the material.

The session ...

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Nilson Matta's Brazilian Voyage: Copacabana

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 23, 2010

How it is possible that bassist Nilson Matta is allowed to fly so low under the proverbial radar, with recognition coming mainly from his peers, is one of those mysteries that artists have to learn to live with. Meanwhile, Matta has been complementing the music of luminaries from singers Jo&#227o Gilberto, Johnny Alf and Chico Buarque do Holanda, and multi-instrumentalist Hermeto Pascoal, to saxophonist Joe Henderson and pianist Don Pullen, with grace and majesty.Matta's career has spanned decades ...