Jazz Articles

like 272

Hans Tammen: Third Eye Orchestra

by Marc Medwin
December 12, 2009

This is a stunning live recording from one of improvised music's most fascinating proponents. Hans Tammen has gathered a dream team of 13 improvising musicians, but that's hardly the totality of this project, which combines composed material with extemporization to create a score whose modus operandi is constant change on every level. This is one of those discs that verbiage won't encapsulate. The music on offer here is not to be compartmentalized, though it exists in discrete ...

like 370

Lionel Hampton Centennial

by Laurel Gross
December 12, 2009

Lionel HamptonCentennial CelebrationPablo/Telarc - Concord2009 Lionel Hampton Big BandThe European Concerts, 1953-1954Fremeaux & Associes2009 Lionel HamptonMostly BluesNimbus Records2009

Straight out of the gate, the first three tracks of Centennial Celebration show why Art Tatum is still the greatest and why the artful, entertaining and impressive ...

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Miguel Zenon: Esta Plena

by David Adler
December 12, 2009

Like a nimble jet aircraft, Miguel Zenón's Esta Plena leaps into flight from its very first notes. The album arrives not long after Awake (Marsalis Music, 2008), Zenón's jazz quartet/string quartet outing of 2008, but it follows more logically on the heels of 2005's Jíbaro (Marsalis Music), a jazz meditation on the rural music of Zenón's native Puerto Rico. Esta Plena, different but related, finds the alto saxophonist melding authentic plena music with the forward-thinking jazz aesthetic he's developed as ...

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Young Trumpets: Ben Holmes and Sun Trios

by Elliott Simon
December 12, 2009

Ben Holmes TrioBen Holmes TrioSelf Released2009 Sun TrioTime is NowCam Jazz2009 Young creative musicians are the lifeblood of any art form and these two contrasting trumpet trio releases from disparate corners of the jazz landscape have more in common than initially meets the ear. The Ben Holmes Trio has this young talented trumpeter introducing ...

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Peter Mazza: Through My Eyes

by Karen Hogg
December 12, 2009

On Through My Eyes, guitarist Peter Mazza explores a diverse range of tones and sonic palettes, combining jazz sensibilities with a rock aesthetic. Mazza, a 1995 semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, might ruffle the feathers of jazz traditionalists with overdubbing and use of steel string acoustic (in open tunings no less), but the result of this forward thinking style is a recording that brims with energy and creativity. “Burned," a funky, danceable track, starts ...

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String Theory: Dissonance Makes The Heart Grow Fonder & If You Should Go

by John Sharpe
December 12, 2009

The Dom Minasi String Quartet Dissonance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder Konnex Records 2009 Tomas Ulrich's Cargo Cult If You Should Go Cadence Jazz Records 2008

Guitarist Dom Minasi first assembled his string quartet with Jason Kao Hwang (violin), Tomas Ulrich (cello) and Ken Filiano (bass), so that he could play ...

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Chris Welcome / Shayna Dulberger Twofer: Refrain & The Push-Pull Quartet

by John Sharpe
December 12, 2009

Chris Welcome Refrain Empty Room Music 2009 The Push-Pull Quartet At the Stroke of Twelve Tigerasylum Records 2008

Brooklyn shows some similarities with the fertile Chicago scene in the growing numbers of young bands with overlapping personnel about town. Cases in point are these two discs featuring guitarist Chris Welcome in ...

like 273

Three for Xmas

by A. Henkin
December 12, 2009

Wynton MarsalisChristmas Jazz JamSomerset Entertainment2009 Trio WestPlays Holiday Songs, Vol. 2Yummyhouse2009 Carla BleyCarla's Christmas CarolsECM2009 Recording Christmas music, or an entire album of holiday favorites, has become a rite of passage of sorts, having been done over the decades by artists as diverse as Snoop Dogg ...

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Jeremy Pelt Threefer: Caution! Hard Hat Area!; Relentless & Twilight & Blues

by George Kanzler
December 12, 2009

Gasper BertoncelkCaution! Hard Hat Area!Arabesque2009 Sharel CassityRelentlessJazz Legacy Productions2009 Lisa HiltonTwilight & BluesRecord Label #3Year Jeremy Pelt has become a sought-after sideman and his trumpeting has been tapped for three recording projects here: two auspicious debuts by emerging talents, the other from a veteran West Coast ...

like 255

Globe Unity: France

by Fred Bouchard
December 12, 2009

European TV Brass TrioWunschklang Yolk2009 PassagesLes Fées du RhinSans Bruit2009 Gérard SiracusaDrums Immersion Signature/Radio France 2009 Seine scenes unfold as a brass trio marches along the quais of Paris, as funky and quirky in its way as a New Orleans street band. In and out, up ...