Jazz Articles

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Moutin Reunion Quartet: Soul Dancers

by John Kelman
March 9, 2010

Despite the reunion now nearly a decade old, there's nothing out of place or out of time about the vibrant Moutin Reunion Quartet. The group--co-led by twin brothers François (bass) and Louis (drums) Moutin--has delivered fiery album after fiery album since its 2002 debut, Power Tree (Dreyfus), but it's only been since its third release, Something Like Now (Nocturne, 2005), that the group has settled on the winning line-up of keyboardist Pierre de Bethmann and saxophonist Rick Margitza. ...

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Barb Jungr: The Men I Love: The New American Songbook

by C. Michael Bailey
March 9, 2010

A British Edith Piaf is a dead-on description of Barb Jungr. She is more a song stylist than a jazz vocalist but on The Men I Love she mines a new vein of music in the Great American Songbook for alternative interpretation. All the songs, whether originally up-tempo or ballads, are easily spread into a contemporary song cycle of the second half of the 20th century. The tone and mood are accomplished by the spare instrumentation Jungr employs with Frank ...

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Dana Hall: Into The Light

by John Barron
March 9, 2010

Chicago-based drummer Dana Hall makes his debut as a leader with Into the Light, a provocative quintet recording featuring trumpeter Terell Stafford, saxophonist Tim Warfield, Jr., pianist Bruce Barth, and bassist Rodney Whitaker. Herbie Hancock's “I Have a Dream" opens the session with an explosive punch. Hall's uncompromising intensity makes clear exactly who is leading the date. Along with Barth's punchy Fender Rhodes comping, the drummer steers the tune through an unpredictable course of shifting grooves with dynamic ...

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Take Five With Matt Stevens

by AAJ Staff
March 9, 2010

Meet Matt Stevens: Matt Stevens is a musician and composer from North London. An instrumental artist, he uses an acoustic guitar and a sampler to create multi-layered tracks live. This is often called Live Looping. His music is compared with artists as diverse as John McLaughlin and Sigur Ros. He plays live all over the UK. Last year saw the release of Echo, his well received debut album.

He composed for short films, (including the award winning Daddy's ...

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Anders Nilsson´s AORTA Ensemble: Anders Nilsson's AORTA Ensemble

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 9, 2010

Swedish-born, Brooklyn-based guitarist Anders Nilsson unites two of his working ensembles into his dream project. The Swedish, Malmo-based AORTA and the New York-based Fulminate Trio first played together during Kopasetic Productions' KopaFest in Malmo in 2008. Both groups fulfill beautifully Nilsson's vision and create orchestral, open-ended, multidimensional, improvised music that references the great 1970s fusion bands, but with a much broader scope and liberties--and more importantly, free from the genre's notorious clichés.

Nilsson cites Wayne Shorter's early fusion classic Super ...

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Anne Bisson: Blue Mind

by Jerry D'Souza
March 9, 2010

When singer-pianist Anne Bisson decided to record her first album, she had planned on giving classical music a jazz approach. However, one day as she was sitting by her piano, the muse descended and inspired her to write “Little Black Lake." She discovered an inner trove of songs that emerged from her heart to fill this CD, with one exception--Steve Hackett's “Hoping Love Will Last."

Bisson, who lives in Montreal, began classical piano lessons when she was six. Five years ...

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The Necks: Silverwater

by A. Henkin
March 9, 2010

A recent conversation brought up the question why anyone would buy a CD by the Australian trio The Necks. The interlocutor wasn't questioning the quality of the band, merely wondering about listening to them any way other than live. The reason is the same why people read Tennessee Williams plays--appreciating genius outside of the visceral experience. Since their inception, The Necks--pianist Chris Abrahams, bassist Lloyd Swanton and drummer Tony Buck--have hewn remarkably close to their original concept, ...

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Dan Weiss: Timshel

by David Adler
March 9, 2010

Drummer Dan Weiss made a promising trio debut in 2006 with Now Yes When, featuring pianist Jacob Sacks and bassist Thomas Morgan. Timshel, the follow-up, shows an impressive amount of growth for this lineup in the years since. The ideas are bolder, the dynamics more acute, the presentation more evolved. There are few if any pauses between tracks, allowing for a live performance feel without belaboring the idea of a suite. The 12 compositions, all by Weiss, demand close, immersive ...

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Antonio Ciacca: Lagos Blues (with Steve Grossman)

by George Kanzler
March 9, 2010

There's a good reason most “real" jazz radio stations tend to favor the modern mainstream jazz of the post-bop era codified by such record labels from the mid-20th Century as Blue Note, Columbia's jazz division, Prestige, Riverside and Impulse. It's creative jazz with a comfortingly substantial physicality, clean lines and rhythmic heft still anchored to a swing feel. The excellent Italian jazz pianist Antonio Ciacca is firmly in that modern mainstream, the music here from a quintet, quartet and trio ...

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The Internet For Jazz Musicians

by Chuck Anderson
March 9, 2010

The internet holds enormous potential for jazz musicians. Many of us have little to no idea of how to take advantage of it. We tend to have websites, Facebook and maybe Twitter. How many of us are happy with the results we get from our efforts? After much searching, I have found evolvor.com. The following interview was conducted with Eric Hebert CEO of Evolvor Media on the subject of maximizing exposure through the internet. All ...