Jazz Articles

like 477

Brother Thelonious Quintet: Brother Thelonious

by Mark Corroto
November 27, 2009

Nobody can deny the distinctive signature of Thelonious Monk's music. Written for simple piano, bass, and drums, it is a remarkable blending of melody, harmony, and rhythm. Now, expand his conception into a quintet setting and the challenge as Monk would say, to “lift the bandstand," presents itself to the musicians and arrangers.

Assigning such a task to six distinguished graduates of The Thelonious Monk Institute Of Jazz finds the music in great hands. Featuring a core quintet ...

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Theo Croker 4 Swing at Cotton's Shanghai

by Jenn Chan Lyman
November 27, 2009

Theo Croker 4 Swing Cotton's Shanghai November 11, 2009 For the past three Wednesdays, Shanghai's favorite “bar-in-a-lane-house" has been presenting A Swinging Affair at Cotton's from 9pm to 12:30am. The quartet performs on the floor right beside the patrons, sitting on the same plush red chairs that Cotton's is renowned for and playing as if they were in their own living rooms. Trumpeter and band leader Theo Croker managed to gather together four ...

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Marcus Tardelli: Unha e Carne (Interpretations of Guinga)

by Raul d'Gama Rose
November 27, 2009

Even if Guinga never pronounced that Marcus Tardelli as “the greatest acoustic guitarist that Brazil has produced in history," the musical evidence on Unha e Carne (Fingernail and Flesh), would certainly put him on a pedestal right next to Egberto Gismonti, Sergio and Odair Assad. In fact, based on technique, expression, intonation and dynamics, there is a solid case for ranking Tardelli very close to guitarists such as Julian Bream and, perhaps, even to Andreas Segovia. Guinga, ...

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100nka and Herb Robertson: Superdesert

by Jerry D'Souza
November 27, 2009

How much shit can one take? Well that depends. If it is being served by the quirky Polish trio 100nka--featuring guitarist Tomek Leś, bassist Adam Stodolski and percussionist Przemek Borowiecki--there may not be quite enough. Their music is rather undefinable, jumping and sneaking as it does into odd nooks and crannies. Much of it comes from being inquisitive; some of it has to do with the men who influenced them, including John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Drew Gress, Ellery ...

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King David and The Talk of the Town Band: Mr. Success Chicago

by Edward Blanco
November 27, 2009

New York vocalist King David makes no excuses for his love of good old swing music, the sound of the big bands and the music from the 1930s to the 1960s, as he borrows from The Great American Songbook in reinterpreting and updating terrific old standards on Mr. Success Chicago, with has Talk of The Town backup band. David is sometimes seen as a throwback to the past; influenced by the music of such legends as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, ...

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Colin Cannon: In Summary

by Ian Patterson
November 26, 2009

In Summary may seem like an odd title for Colin Cannon's debut recording and the beginning of a musical journey; but as the liner notes attest, this music is the result of his every positive and negative experience of the last five years. To make music any other way would be to leave part of himself out of the creative process, and what comes through is the personality of Cannon as guitarist and composer, which is perhaps his greatest achievement ...

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Amina Claudine Myers: From Mozart to Miles and Beyond

by Kurt Gottschalk
November 26, 2009

Composer, pianist and singer Amina Claudine Myers is a part of the first generation of the famed Chicago collective the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Coming north from her native Blackwell, Arkansas, she was an unusual presence in the organization--not just as one of the few female members, but as a singer and songwriter willing to, at times, employ traditional song structures. Outside of the AACM, Myers has played in bands led by Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon, ...

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Terry Plumeri: Water Garden

by John Kelman
November 26, 2009

With the compelling, largely free-blowing 1971 session He Who Lives In Many Places (GMMC Records) finally issued on CD in 2006, Water Garden rights a similar wrong for Terry Plumeri, an overlooked bassist if ever there was one. Recorded five years later, Water Garden was an even more ambitious date that brought back guitarist John Abercrombie and percussionist Michael Smith, but also features enlists Ralph Towner and, in one of his earliest date, pianist Marc Copland.

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The Derek Trucks Band in Rutland VT: One for the Ages

by Doug Collette
November 26, 2009

The Derek Trucks Band Paramount Theatre Rutland,Vermont November 6, 2009 The Derek Trucks Band concluded the second of their extended sets at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland, Vermont with “Key to the Highway" and “My Favorite things," each tune a mirror image of the other and an all but perfect distillation of the preceding near-three hours of stellar musicianship. The interweaving of raw intensity and graceful lyricism was the sextet's ...

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Milton Nascimento at Carnegie Hall

by Ernest Barteldes
November 26, 2009

Milton Nascimento Carnegie Hall New York, New York November 18, 2009

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of his first Carnegie Hall appearance, Milton Nascimento presented exactly what his many fans were hoping for: an evening filled with many of his greatest hits, including a few numbers he hadn't played live in quite a few years. “it is a blessing to play here," he declared in English halfway through the set, acknowledging the passing ...