Jazz Articles

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Count Basie: Live in Berlin & Stockholm 1968

by Graham L. Flanagan
January 30, 2010

Count Basie Live in Berlin & Stockholm 1968 Impro Jazz 2009

Every jazz fan, while listening to an album by one of their favorite legends of the genre, occasionally closes their eyes to imagine what it might have been like actually to be there for the recording itself. Due to the fact that jazz performances and recording sessions were in the past so rarely filmed (and because time travel has yet to ...

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Aaron Germain: Before You Go

by Bruce Lindsay
January 30, 2010

The key to the eclecticism of Before You Go, bassist Aaron Germain's first album as leader, can be found in his stated aim as a musician: to be “picky about quality, not genre." Germain's ten original tunes take in straightforward hard bop, blues, Latin and funk styles--and the quality is always high.

Throughout the album, Germain's compositions take center stage. While the quality of his playing is obvious, Germain never uses the tunes simply to demonstrate his talent--neither does he ...

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Harry Allen: New York State of Mind

by Raul d'Gama Rose
January 30, 2010

The big, fat, warm and tender tone of Harry Allen's tenor saxophone is impossible to miss. There is no one who sounds quite like him, and that is probably because no other saxophonist has embraced the tenor horn in a similar way. No one since Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster has mined the wealth of that instrument for its burnished elegant timbre except Harry Allen. Following the success of Hits by Brits (Challenge Records, 2007), comes New York State of ...

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Kenny & Leah: April in Paris

by C. Michael Bailey
January 30, 2010

Hear, hear for the center. Kenny and Leah Soderblom have been self-producing straight- down-the-middle mainstream jazz over three previous recordings from 2009: You and the Night and the Music, Hearts and I've Dreamed of You. The husband-and-wife team has been setting a standard for musical synergy, making high quality, romance-oriented jazz, musical love letters to one another.

Bassist Mark Neuenschwander's arrangements are both piquant and traditional and never boring. This is important as this duo's goal is not to pioneer ...

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Bill Dixon: Excerpts from Vade Mecum

by AAJ Staff
January 29, 2010

Introduction by AAJ Contributor Clifford Allen.

It is rare in the climate of this music to be presented with a view of an artist that is truly multifaceted, even though the collected works of most artists operate at a number of levels and, on occasion, in a number of media. Bill Dixon is probably best known as a trumpeter and composer; he is also a visual artist, professor (Bennington College, 1968-1996), and has created an expansive body of written material, ...

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Scott Hamilton: Live at Nefertiti

by Jakob Baekgaard
January 29, 2010

Jazz isn't always about breaking new ground in terms of sound and genre. It's just as important to preserve the music of the masters, and nobody carries the torch of tradition more elegantly than tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton. His heroes include Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young--in short, the founding fathers of swing saxophone playing.

Paradoxically, Hamilton was something of a rare bird when he first emerged on the scene back in the seventies because of his emphasis on ...

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Klaus Gesing: Heartluggage

by John Kelman
January 29, 2010

Sometimes a musician's associations are so high profile that it's easy to overlook his own work as a leader. Seeming to appear out of nowhere on British vocal legend Norma Winstone's sublime Distances (ECM, 2008) and Tunisian oudist Anouar Brahem's equally chamber-centric The Astounding Eyes of Rita (ECM, 2009), Klaus Gesing is, in fact, an established and active player. Heartluggage isn't the saxophonist/clarinetist's first album as a leader, but it's as good a place as any to discover how, while ...

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Matana Roberts

by Martin Longley
January 29, 2010

John Zorn has invited the Chicagoan alto saxophonist Matana Roberts to curate at The Stone. The most common practice is for a month to be shared by two artists, but Roberts has all of January to herself. It's a sign of an omnivorous musical appetite that she's struggled to cram all of her dream-choices into a mere four weeks. It's also unusual for an artist not to showcase several of their own band permutations. Showing remarkable restraint, Roberts will only ...

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Take Five With Jerry Tilitz

by AAJ Staff
January 29, 2010

Meet Jerry Tilitz: Jerry Tilitz is an American trombonist, composer and vocalist from New York City presently ensconced in Hamburg, Germany. In the course of his career Mr. Tilitz has performed and recorded with many exceptional artists including Gerry Mulligan, Horace Parlan, Hank Jones, Roy Eldridge, Herb Geller, Tommy Flanagan, Warren Vache, Adam Nussbaum, Benny Bailey, Danny Moss, Harry Allen, Randy Sandke, Tom Harrell, Barry Harris, Bill Mays, Randy Brecker, Benny Golson and many others.After studying with Jazz ...

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Memphis Nighthawks featuring Ron DeWar: Jazz Lips

by Nic Jones
January 29, 2010

There's no mistaking the Memphis Nighthawks knew and loved traditional jazz, but what really distinguished the group was its blend of fire, drive and enthusiasm. On the 30 year-old sessions collected into Jazz Lips, the group puts these qualities across with enough vengeance to shame a host of neoconservatives, breathing life into its preferred form in ways those neocons might never muster.

The absence of drums on much of the record lends it a light and spacious air, ...