Jazz Articles

like 374

Mark Lockheart & the NDR Big Band: Days Like These

by Nic Jones
March 1, 2010

Considering the instrumental forces that the big band offers, it's surprising how conservative a lot of large ensemble writing is. Days Like These isn't iconoclastically innovative, but there's enough on offer to satisfy those who find such conservatism tiresome.

Saxophonist Mark Lockheart clearly appreciates what he has at his disposal for all of the relatively conventional section scoring. NDR is a band that embraces rhythmic precision, even as it remains loose enough to avoid sounding drilled. Despite the cyclical, quasi-minimalist ...

like 681

Preservation Hall Jazz Band: Preservation

by Wade Luquet
March 1, 2010

Preservation Hall Jazz Band Preservation: An Album To Benefit Preservation Hall & The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program Preservation Hall 2010

What do you get when you cross America's best traditional jazz band with 20 emerging or legendary musical artists? You get a terrific collection of highly listenable traditional jazz performances by a highly improbable combination of musicians and vocalists. Who would have thought to have Del McCoury sing “After You've Gone" with his ...

like 432

Paal / Michiyo / Broe: Volda

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 1, 2010

The sophomore release of the trio featuring German reed legend Peter Brötzmann, Japanese koto iconoclast Michiyo Yagi and Norwegian master drummer Paal Nilssen-Love--following Head On (Idiolect, 2008)--is a remarkable demonstration of how energy and power transform into spiritual catharsis. It's easy to understand why this trio was named the Spirit & Power Trio during its Japanese tour, few months after this release was recorded.

It's not about muscular, full onslaught, raw power, as is often mistakenly associated with Brötzmann's many ...

like 256

Take Five With Andrea Wolper

by AAJ Staff
March 1, 2010

Meet Andrea Wolper: Jazz / improvising vocalist and songwriter. Leads her own groups performing her arrangements of originals, standards, and music from other sources. Also part of TranceFormation with Connie Crothers and Ken Filiano, and Objects in Mirror, with Adam Caine, Fung Chern Hwei, and Ken Yamazaki. Instrument(s):Voice.Your sound and approach to music:My approach is to embrace, as much as possible, whatever music I'm drawn to, without judgment...to be as generous as ...

like 432

Nilson Matta's Brazilian Voyage: Copacabana

by Edward Blanco
March 1, 2010

New York-based bassist Nilson Matta's Copacabana offers a musical adventure reflecting the many aspects of his native Brazil. Whether the culture, its different regions or natural wonders; Matta blends an exciting selection of new material with old Brazilian standards in a dedication to his homeland. The album--as well as Matta's combo (Nilson Matta's Brazilian Voyage--was born from a single event; a convention about Brazilian culture held at The Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York where he was asked to perform ...

like 205

Various: Rhythm & Blues

by Jerry D'Souza
March 1, 2010

Putumayo World Music has gone across a wide spectrum in picking songs for its look at Rhythm & Blues. The American presence is strongly manifested, but artists from England, including a band that has a singer from Panama, show the wide influence of the music. Vintage singers strut their stuff and new acolytes blend styles while the impact of R&B is undeniable. Fame may have eluded some and others flitter on the fringes of history, nevertheless they all poured their ...

like 437

Nicolas Meier: Journey

by Chris May
March 1, 2010

Turkish music and jazz make compatible bedfellows, so it's curious that congress takes place so infrequently outside Turkey. In the late 1950s, pianist Dave Brubeck combined Turkish 9/8 rhythm patterns with classical rondo form and the blues to create “Blue Rondo A La Turk" on Time Out (Columbia, 1959). In the 1980s, Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel hooked up with the Turkish pianist Aydin Esen, a fellow student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, eventually recording the noodling, new ...

like 535

Either/Or (No More)

by Darcy James Argue
February 28, 2010

You know that party game where you present people with a forced choice that's actually a litmus test for distinguishing between two kinds of people? Here, let's play--pick one (and only one): Matisse or Picasso? Federer or Nadal? The Daily Show or The Colbert Report? Since I am a “jazz composer" by training and self-identification, it seems like I'm always being asked to play this game: improvisation or composition? I am not alone in this--every composer who ...

like 521

Sidsel Storm: Swedish Lullaby

by Jakob Baekgaard
February 28, 2010

Sidsel Storm belongs to the cream of the crop of new Danish female jazz singers, including names such as Sinne Eeg and Malene Mortensen. Since releasing her self- titled debut in 2008, Storm has made herself a solid name on the Danish jazz scene and Swedish Lullaby, her second effort, suggests she's ready for worldwide attention. Swedish Lullaby shows a singer who has matured surprisingly fast. Storm's voice shines with a wide palette that leaves room for ...

like 602

March 2010

by AAJ Staff
February 28, 2010

Gerald Clayton Village VanguardNew York, NY February 11, 2010To start, pianist Gerald Clayton ought to have won that Grammy for his solo on “All of You," from his debut Two-Shade, a burning 2009 trio album that was picked up by Emarcy (from ArtistShare) for wider release in 2010. Along with the Grammy nomination, Clayton also had the honor of a weeklong stint at the Village Vanguard in early February. As he, bassist Joe Sanders ...