Jazz Articles

like 333

Dave Douglas Tiny Bell Trio: Constellations

by Mark Corroto
January 22, 2010

With trumpeter Dave Douglas' 21st century star continuing to rise, the hatOLOGY reissue of his Tiny Bell Trio recording Constellations serves as a reminder of the not too distant past. Hearing Douglas, guitarist Brad Shepik, and drummer Jim Black circa 1995 provides the context in which to consider their more recent efforts.

At the time of this recording, Douglas' restless sound found avenues for expression in John Zorn's Masada, Parallel Worlds (a string group), the chamber ensemble Charms Of The ...

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Innova Recordings

by Kurt Gottschalk
January 22, 2010

That the record industry is in trouble is hardly, as the 21st Century nears 10% completion, a revelation. Sales are down, labels are closing and industry-wide people are scrabbling for new business plans, new means of distribution and any way to stay afloat. Cost-sharing models, once considered as anathema to the making of art as “pay to play" nightclubs, have become increasingly accepted as a viable way to get one's music heard and labels catering to relatively narrow audiences--even some ...

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Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Forty Fort

by Jakob Baekgaard
January 22, 2010

Even though jazz is an improvised art that's bursting with the unexpected, some groups stand out as being especially adventurous and wild. In terms of anarchy of sound, Mostly Other People Do the Killing is in a class of its own. On their fourth effort, Forty Fort, the group descends further into musical madness, exploring a wealth of styles that would make even Miles Davis blush. “Pen Argyll" kicks things off with its punctuated rock groove and ...

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Wadada Leo Smith: Spiritual Dimensions

by Raul d'Gama Rose
January 22, 2010

Every note trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith blows on his exquisite brass instrument brings a whole world of joy. The sound of the Earth and the Heavens in every echo and ululation of the notes that flow out of his trumpet, dancing the interminable dance of lovers in unison, like sunrise and sunset, day and night. Each is an element of a cosmic double-helix intertwined and waltzing sensuously around each other. Oh, the joy of Spiritual Dimensions, in the studio with ...

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Delta Blues & the Birth (and Death) of the Cool: Two definitive Ted Gioia Histories

by C. Michael Bailey
January 22, 2010

Does the music world need one more history of Delta blues music? Does a survey of a spongy concept like “cool" have any relevance in a post-9/11 world? Considering Robert Palmer authored a definitive narrative on depression-era Mississippi Delta music in Deep Blues (Viking, 1981) almost 30 years ago, and that Martin Williams and David Rosenthal, among many others, have already tried, with anemic success, to define other amorphous musical concepts like “Swing" and “Bad," do we really need to ...

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Bill Holman

by Marcia Hillman
January 22, 2010

Bill Holman is a man with many milestones. Known primarily for years of unique and complex arrangements, Holman's continuing and long-running career as a composer and saxophonist reaches another milestone this month when he will be awarded the title of NEA Jazz Master. A California native, Holman took up clarinet in junior high school and tenor saxophone in high school where he was leading his own band. In the late '40s, after a stint in the US Navy and engineering ...

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Barry Guy / London Jazz Composers Orchestra / Irene Schweizer: Radio Rondo

by Nic Jones
January 21, 2010

Radio Rondo was recorded at a Swiss jazz festival in May of 2008. The program is split into two halves, the first of which is a Irene Schweizer solo; the second, featuring the pianist in the company of bassist Barry Guy and his longstanding orchestra.

What makes the music notable is the degree to which it's reflective of fearsome intelligence at work. As a pianist, Schweizer has taken the time-honored route in her working through influences and emerging with her ...

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Craig Taborn Trio at the Vortex, London, England

by John Sharpe
January 21, 2010

Craig Taborn Trio Vortex London, England December 7, 2009

Judging by the number of young musicians in the audience, pianist Craig Taborn has something of a reputation among the cognoscenti. That many of them were pianists too just whetted the appetite even more for his leadership debut in the UK in the supportive setting of north London's Vortex. Of course Taborn is far from an unknown quantity in town, having high-profile sideman gigs with ...

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Grosse Abfahrt: Vanity

by Raul d'Gama Rose
January 21, 2010

What happens when serious musicians get together to examine the character and proclivities of a society, as broadcast via the identification plates on the cars of the people that drive them? The music that describes their very public personalities makes for an ironic, slightly mocking, yet always hilarious look into the “stamped-metal bumper culture expressions" of this society. Grosse Abfahrt, an eight-piece chamber ensemble, takes this society to task on Vanity, an interpretation of this bumper-culture with a ten-piece suite. ...

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Erroll Garner: Early In Paris

by Warren Allen
January 21, 2010

Erroll Garner was one of the savants of jazz who helped define the sound and style of his instrument without ever learning to read music. His brilliance rested in a unique ear, from which he developed a personal and indisputably beautiful approach to the piano that spun beautiful, romantic statements and spontaneous adventures from his own tunes and the songs of the American Songbook. It is telling, that in a modern jazz world dominated by virtuosi, Garner remains as unduplicated ...