Jazz Articles

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November 2009

by Michael Ricci
November 16, 2009

Dear fellow AAJ contributor,

We're quickly approaching the end of the year and we're wrapping up a few outstanding projects. We feel good about the many improvements we've made to AAJ in 2009 and we look forward to further expanding the site next year. Read on for recent news and get a glimpse at what's coming in 2010... Photo Gallery Update

The new photo gallery has been a big success and ...

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Carlos Barbosa-Lima: Merengue

by Jerry D'Souza
November 16, 2009

Guitarist Carlos Barbosa-Lima has been enchanting listeners for over 50 years. During that time he has made his mark in live performances, as well as the 50 albums he has released. His sense of rhythm and melody, time and pulse, and his ability to enhance the mood through dynamics and harmony give his music an incipient beauty.

The music of South America speaks several native languages. Barbosa-Lima, a luminous interpreter of the norms, lets that shine through in solo as ...

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Jerry Granelli V16: Vancouver '08

by Sean Patrick Fitzell
November 16, 2009

Over 40-plus years as an innovative performer and renowned educator, drummer Jerry Granelli has shown an affinity for the sonic possibilities of paired electric guitars. Since 2003, he's explored this interest in V16, with guitarists David Tronzo and Christian Kogel and his son, electric bassist J. Anthony Granelli. Vancouver '08, their third release, vividly captures their unique sound world--referencing jazz, blues and psychedelic rock, but not beholden to these traditions. The group has forged a collective identity ...

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Mikkel Ploug / Sissel Vera Pettersen / Joachim Badenhorst: Equilibrium

by Wilbur MacKenzie
November 16, 2009

Equilibrium is three-way partnership between Danish guitarist Mikkel Ploug, Belgian saxophonist and clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst and Norwegian vocalist and saxophonist Sissel Vera Pettersen. The trio's charming and ruminative mixture borrows elements of contemporary chamber music, jazz and various indigenous vocal traditions ranging from Inuit throat singing to West African griots and incorporates a variety of extended instrumental techniques and electronic processing. The trio revels in the sonorities it produces and each texture that arises exists in its ...

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Manfred Schoof: Resonance

by John Kelman
November 16, 2009

For every artist that has achieved international attention via the exposure of ECM Records, there are countless others who seem to have been lost beneath the cracks. German trumpeter Manfred Schoof, who recorded three superb albums for the ECM-affiliated JAPO label in the 1970s, was a member of the freewheeling Globe Unity Orchestra alongside Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Kenny Wheeler, and Albert Mangelsdorff, all of whom went on to greater acclaim. Resonance collects Scales (1976), Light Lines (1978), and four ...

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Art Pepper: The Art History Project

by Mark Corroto
November 15, 2009

The tragic jazz life and death story of saxophonist Art Pepper was similar to that of Charlie Parker in many ways. Like Bird's brilliance, Art Pepper's intense flame burned bright, and his genius with the saxophone was subject to fan adoration and critical admiration. Unlike Parker, who died at age 35, Pepper lived into his mid-50s, making an infamous comeback from drugs and prison.This three-disc compilation is the fourth in a series of releases curated by Pepper's widow, ...

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Part 5 - Revival & Revolution

by Chris May
November 15, 2009

Various ArtistsAfrobeat RevivalRough Guide2009 When Fela Kuti died in 1997, it seemed, for a while, as though Afrobeat might have died with him. So colossal was Kuti's role in the music, and so few were the young pretenders to his throne, that the vacuum left by his passing appeared unfillable. In the immediate aftermath of his death it was left, not to a young pretender, but to the drummer Tony Allen, ...

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Jean-Nicholas Trottier: Quartet

by Raul d'Gama Rose
November 15, 2009

If anyone has learned Roswell Rudd's remarkable lesson in the infinitely mammalian voice simulations possible on the trombone, it's Jean-Nicholas Trottier. Quartet, Trottier's small ensemble record--earlier in 2009 he released his first, big band record--features the trombonist in almost splendid isolation, with only saxophonist Alexandre Côtè in play. Along with bassist Sébastien Pellerin and drummer Michel Berthiaume, they ride wave-after-wave of spectacular musical expedition. Trottier appears to harbor a chorus of voices in the six feet or ...

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Jade Visions: The Life And Music Of Scott LaFaro

by Robert Iannapollo
November 15, 2009

Jade Visions: The Life And Music Of Scott LaFaro Helene LaFaro-Fernandez Hardcover; 322 pages ISBN: 1-57441-273-4 University of North Texas Press 2009 At the outset, I have to own up to bassist Scott LaFaro being a personal hero. Growing up in Geneva, NY, also home to the bassist, it was always a point of pride that this man, a major contributor in changing the role of his ...

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Thisisashakedown: Love Kills

by Glenn Astarita
November 15, 2009

Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, Thisisashakedown's debut offers a highly-listenable potpourri of stylizations. The foursome merges acid-rock, progressive-metal, house grooves, techno and space-rock into a tightly organized package. And the respective artists' significant technical acumen translates into a party music album with a distinct edge, nicely contrasted by memorable hooks and Brandon Zano's resonating vocals.

The rhythm section lays out a firm bottom via pounding backbeats. Zano also handles the lead guitar duties. Hence, it's a driving and forceful ...