Jazz Articles

like 136

Uwe Oberg / Christof Thewes / Michael Griener: Lacy Pool

by Glenn Astarita
December 19, 2009

Three well-versed European progressive-jazz denizens impart a rather majestic blend of song-form and improvisation when covering the late, great soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy's discography. Approaching this album from a mindset that eliminates comparisons to Lacy's original performances lent to a more appropriate route for the listening experience.

Without a saxophonist and bassist, the piano-trombone-drums format offers a penetrating and sometimes deviating musical climate, where more traditional propensities might prove the opposite. The musicians form the right blend here. ...

like 457

Vincent Courtois Quartet in Helsinki, November 9, 2009

by Anthony Shaw
December 19, 2009

Vincent Courtois Quartet Malmintalo - Helsinki, FinlandNovember 9, 2009

Vincent Courtois likens himself to an off-road, all-terrain vehicle: he takes his music to places where other cellists are reluctant to go. And it can't be denied after being in the company of his current quartet for an evening's entertainment that it's an exciting and awe-inspiring journey that he invites you on.

Playing regularly with two established experimentalists, Silvie Courvoisier and Yves Robert, both ECM ...

like 226

Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord: Accomplish Jazz

by Mark Corroto
December 19, 2009

In the jazz world, there is something in the air. Barely detectable, but definitely something in the air these days. A whiff of change (or maybe the decay of traditions decomposing). It can be heard in the music the young lions (YL) are playing. These YLs are more like the Lee Morgan/Wayne Shorter YLs of the 1960s than the Marsalis generation of the 1980s. They intend to grab jazz by the lapel and shake it with extreme prejudice. ...

like 794

Peter Brotzmann: Die Like A Dog

by Clifford Allen
December 19, 2009

Peter Brotzmann Die Like a Dog Jazzwerkstatt 2008

German reedman-composer Peter Brotzmann is, despite an immense catalog spanning over forty years of activity in free music, criminally underrepresented in the format of a “standard" piano-less quartet. From reed-heavy octets and orchestras to the winds-bass-drums power trio, not to mention a long-running trio with percussion and piano, most of the possible formations have been covered. His Die Like A Dog Quartet was the one entry ...

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The Chris Kelsey 4: Not Cool {. . .As In, "The Opposite of Paul Desmond"}

by Jerry D'Souza
December 19, 2009

Growing up as the son of a jazz saxophonist, saxophonist Chris Kelsey was influenced by his father's tastes in jazz. Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins were among those favorite artists, but Paul Desmond was not. Kelsey first heard Desmond on Bridge Over Troubled Water (A&M, 1969), his ode to Simon and Garfunkel, which was played just once in the Kelsey household. Desmond did not stir any emotions, though Kelsey admits that Desmond was “a fine player in his ...

like 239

Cords

by Wayne Wolfson
December 19, 2009

Every person, friend, family, enemy and lover is a string, one end attached to you. Tethered to life. We go through our lives getting all tangled up. When someone dies the cord is cut. Gazing down, your hold the severed line in your hand and wonder about the cut. Even with the courage to go back to the opera in Vienna or that little bar with no name, it is no longer the same. Without that lifeline, everything ...

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Saxophone and Drum duets: rue victor masse; Control This; Common Denominator; Two in NYC.

by John Sharpe
December 19, 2009

Ray Warleigh rue victor masse psi 2008 Michael Blake / Kresten Osgood Control This Clean Feed 2009 Bonnie Kane / Federico Ughi Common Denominator W.O.O. Music 2009 Arthur Rhames & Charles Telerant Two in NYC Ayler Records 2009

like 237

Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

by Russ Musto
December 19, 2009

Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original Robin D.G. Kelley Free Press ISBN: 0684831902 2009 This is an authoritative tome that pulls aside, without completely lifting, the shroud of mystery that has long surrounded one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of jazz. Exhaustively researched over a period of more than a decade, Kelley, who spoke with nearly every one of his subject's living relatives, friends and colleagues, ...

like 1,180

Your Favourite Jazz Records: No Rules in Jazz

by Jakob Baekgaard
December 18, 2009

In the late 2000s, Danish jazz is experiencing something of a renaissance. The fertile milieu around Copenhagen's Rhythmic Music Conservatory has helped to create a network of connections that is making it possible for musicians to control their art and release their music on self-owned labels. A perfect example of this new movement is the small label, Your Favourite Jazz Records, owned by pianist Lars Winther.

“I started the label in 2005," says Winther, “in order to publish ...

like 348

Tony Malaby's Apparitions: Voladores

by Troy Collins
December 18, 2009

New York-based tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby's seventh album as a leader, Voladores, is named after the visually stunning Mexican dance troupes he saw while growing up in Tucson, Arizona. Inspired by their celebratory rhythmic fervor, he employs a dynamic dual drummer-based quartet on this date, revisiting the heavily percussive line-up of his 2003 sophomore release, Apparitions (Songlines).

Bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey return from the earlier session, with second drummer Michael Sarin replaced by percussionist and ...