Jazz Articles

like 408

Ivan Farmakovsky: Next To The Shadow

by Bruce Lindsay
October 30, 2009

According to his sleeve notes for Next To The Shadow, Russian pianist Ivan Farmakovsky has a passion for football and from the quality of the tunes on the album, his passion for jazz is also abundantly clear. This is Farmakovsky's first album as a leader and while the music breaks no new ground, it is played with such enthusiasm and ability that it is impossible not to share this passion. The tunes on this album, all written ...

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The State of Jazz Reissues 2009: Miles Davis and Art Pepper

by C. Michael Bailey
October 30, 2009

Jazz is a Romance language. It relies as much, if not more, on music already played and pondered over than that being performed right now, much less germinating in a musician's mind for the future. How does a classic become a classic if not through the passage of time and repeated listenings?

The beauty of recorded music is that it exists to be repackaged, reconsidered and re-appreciated. Trumpeter Miles Davis and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins' The Classic Prestige ...

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Kalil Wilson: Easy to Love

by Raul d'Gama Rose
October 30, 2009

It is somewhat disconcerting how few new male vocalists inhabiting the jazz idiom practice their craft with the same degree of genius and virtuosity as saxophonists and other instrumentalists. It is a conundrum why so many new artists don't play the first instrument--the human voice. Some posit that poeta nascitur non fit? Is it true that vocal art is the one art that cannot really be taught, but only refined in those who “were born with it"? That appears so. ...

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Take Five With Dan Dorff

by AAJ Staff
October 30, 2009

Meet Daniel Joseph Dorff: Dan Dorff is a drummer, percussionist and keyboardist who specializes in styles ranging from jazz, blues, gospel and folk to rock, pop, afro-cuban, brazilian and other dance genres. The depth of Dan's musical interests has sparked a performing career that has led him to 4 continents and over 25 countries and keeps him in demand as a performer, arranger and producer.He has toured, performed, and/or recorded with: Daniel Martin Moore, STOMP, Deal's Gone Bad, ...

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Miriodor: Avanti!

by Glenn Astarita
October 30, 2009

The seventh release from this French-Canadian band that boasts a thirty-year union, offers more musical wizardry and unanticipated surprises interspersed throughout these seven vibrant works. The core quartet is augmented by a horn section on select tracks. Here, multilayered dream sequences engage polyrhythmic and complex theme-building exercise that aim to taunt a willingly receptive mind's eye.

The musicians generate quirky, polytonal melodies, sometimes spiced with a sense of antiquity due to keyboardist Pascal Globensky's or bassist Nicolas Masino's ...

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Empirical: Out 'n' In

by Chris May
October 29, 2009

Empirical's eponymous debut album, a stew of mutated bop produced by saxophonist Courtney Pine for his own Destin-E label, created a bushfire of enthusiasm in the UK. That was in 2007, and since then the group has made international strides too, appearing at the Newport Jazz Festival, the New York Jazz Festival, the North Sea Jazz Festival and at the Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and Montreal jazz festivals. The band hasn't headlined yet, but on the evidence of Out 'n' In, ...

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Stellari String Quartet: Gocce Stellari

by John Eyles
October 29, 2009

Over the years, Emanem has nobly championed the cause of improvising string players. Back in 2001, the label released the groundbreaking triple CD Strings with Evan Parker on which the majority of tracks actually featured strings without Parker's sax. Before that came Kent Carter's's string trio of bass, violin and viola. More recently, Emanem has released Arc, the trio of violin, cello and double-bass, and Trio of Uncertainty, consisting of Veryan Weston's piano plus cello and violin. So ...

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Stefon Harris and Blackout in Golden, CO

by Geoff Anderson
October 29, 2009

Stefon Harris and Blackout Mt. Vernon Country Club Golden, CO October 15, 2009

Stefon Harris is like one of those small, wiry running backs that gets the job done through finesse and quickness rather than brute force. Indeed, at his concert Thursday night at the Mt. Vernon Country Club, Harris sometimes darted back and forth in front of his vibraphone reaching between the bass clef and treble clef like a ball carrier cutting ...

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Sunday Jam with Jason Palmer at Wally's Cafe, Boston

by Timothy J. O'Keefe
October 29, 2009

Open Jam with Jason PalmerWally's CafeBoston, MassachusettsOctober 18, 2009

It's New England, and a mixture of rain and snow falls on this October day. Beyond a red door lies a small, rectangular room. At the far end of the bar, a TV is tuned to the game. But you don't come here for the game. You come here for the music. This is Wally's Cafe. A place with a long-standing tradition of ...

like 405

Arturo O'Farrill: Risa Negra

by Mark Corroto
October 29, 2009

With his 2009 Grammy award in hand, pianist Arturo O'Farrill can finally step out from the very long shadow cast by his father, Afro-Cuban band leader Chico O'Farrill. On Risa Negra, it can be seen how quickly Arturo's children, trumpeter Adam O'Farrill (age 14) and drummer Zachary O'Farrill (age 17)--featured on one track--begin to peer out from the safety of dad's protective gaze.

This is a family album, it's just that O'Farrill's extended family heard here come from the Caribbean, ...