Jazz Articles

like 442

Selaelo Selota: Lapeng Laka

by Chris M. Slawecki
December 25, 2009

Selaelo Selota seems equal parts King Sunny Ade and George Benson. The rhythms, beats, and melodies on Lapeng Laka glide with the slippery, effortless musical sophistication of traditional tribal songs and dances from his South African homeland, and many of its lyrics deal with its native sights and customs. Selota directs on guitar and vocals from the band's center, leading from the midst instead of out in front, in the democratic process of African music.

Surprisingly, Selota plays very little ...

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Wayne Escoffery: Uptown

by Woodrow Wilkins
December 25, 2009

Bob Mintzer, Kirk Whalum and Ada Rovatti are just a few of today's stunning tenor sax players. Wayne Escoffery can be added to their company. Escoffery, 34, is a native of London who moved to the United States with his mother at an early age. He enjoyed singing, and was a member of the New Haven Trinity Boys Choir in Connecticut. He eventually turned to the saxophone, and has performed with a diverse array of bandleaders and ensembles, ...

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Bassist Jeff Berlin Pays Tribute to Charlie Banacos

by Jeff Berlin
December 24, 2009

[Editor's note: Bassist Jeff Berlin first emerged in the early 1970s with artists including Gil Evans, Ray Barretto, Pee Wee Ellis and Don Pullen. But it was his fusion work with British drummer Bill Bruford on albums including Feels Good to Me (Winterfold, 1977) and One of a Kind (Winterfold, 1979) that he gained greater international exposure and a reputation as one of jazz's finest (and undervalued) electric bassists. Since that time, Berlin has released a small but significant discography ...

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Joe McPhee / Peter Brotzmann / Kent Kessler / Michael Zerang: The Damage Is Done

by Mark Corroto
December 24, 2009

This live date features legendary free jazz pioneers Peter Brötzmann and Joe McPhee, and Chicago's leading rhythm section, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Michael Zerang. The four also make up 4/10 of Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet, maybe the most successful large new music jazz ensemble ever assembled.

As they have in the past while touring with the Tentet, they step away and perform in this more intimate lineup. This quartet has released two previous recordings, Tales Out Of Time ...

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Gwilym Simcock: Blues Vignette

by Ian Patterson
December 24, 2009

Gwilym Simcock Blues Vignette Basho 2009

Pianist/composer Gwilym Simcock sees the 2CD set Blues Vignette as a musical snapshot capturing but one stage of his musical development. In fact, the album is more like a lovingly crafted self portrait which reveals both the musical bloodline and which hints at future endeavors.

The first CD features Simcock solo and for 20 minutes in a duo performing a suite for cello and piano. Stripped ...

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Charles Evans / Neil Shah: Live at St. Stephens

by Jakob Baekgaard
December 24, 2009

It is sometimes forgotten that music not only exists in time, but also in space. While the unfolding of notes, whether live or recorded, happens over time, the space in which the music is realized is of the outmost importance for the artistic result. The enigma of the improvising artist, the jazz musician in particular, is how to transform music beyond the circumstance of its creation. This is the moment where space is transcended, where the immediacy of the live ...

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Arturo O'Farrill: Risa Negra

by J Hunter
December 24, 2009

Pianist Arturo O'Farrill describes the music on Risa Negra as “Latin/jazz/funk/classical." By “accepted" standards, that means it won't fit into established musical pigeonholes; the Latin, funk, and jazz contingents won't go for it because of the classical angle, and the classical contingent won't go for it because ... well, there's something other than classical music involved. And that's why Risa is so terrific: instead of appealing to one audience, O'Farrill and his partners build a lush, rich meeting place where ...

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Joe Beck & Laura Theodore: Golden Earrings

by Chris M. Slawecki
December 24, 2009

The duet program Golden Earrings is Laura Theodore's ode to Peggy Lee's standard-setting duets with her husband, guitarist and co-composer Dave Barbour. Subsequent circumstances have added a sadder tribute to Theodore's instrumental partner, guitarist Joe Beck, who recorded his final work on Golden Earrings before he succumbed to cancer in July 2008.

Tribute offerings can be tricky propositions. If you stay too close to the originals, critics say that you're simply “aping" them; change them too much and critics complain ...

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Ulrich Gumpert / Gunther Baby Sommer: Das Donnernde Leben

by Nic Jones
December 23, 2009

The members of this duo are both stalwarts of the European free improvisation scene, and their track records speak for themselves. Das Donnernde Leben, however, is a pretty unrewarding addition to their respective discographies, largely because the music seems to have been captured in the preliminary stages of its evolution, as if a matter of hours passing might have made all the difference.

The opening “Locker vom Hocker" is a case in point; it soundtracks two musicians seemingly intent on ...

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Todd Barkan: Continuation and Augmentation

by Wayne Zade
December 23, 2009

Todd Barkan has been one of the most important and versatile producers of jazz concerts and records around the globe for almost 30 years. The list of artists whose projects he has produced reads like a veritable Who's Who of jazz. Barkan has managed many artists, including the Boys Choir of Harlem, Chico O'Farrill and Freddy Cole, has been working since 2001 as artistic administrator for Jazz at Lincoln Center, where he has been Programming Director of Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola ...