Jazz Articles

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Take Five With Willerm Delisfort

by AAJ Staff
October 24, 2009

Meet Willerm Delisfort:Pianist and composer Willerm Delisfort is a messenger of life using music as his tool. His career extends the continuum of musical styles that ranges from jazz, gospel, R&B and many more. Because of this, Willerm's versatility has created a high demand for him with prominent jazz, rap, soul, and fusion artists including 2009 Best World Guitarist Fareed Haque, Grammy Award-winning artist T-Pain, Corey Wilkes,Javon Jackson George Freeman, etc.. Featured on over seven albums on piano, ...

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Jerry Garcia Band: Pure Jerry: Jerry Garcia Band - Bay Area 1978

by Doug Collette
October 24, 2009

Bereft of extensive historical content (or tchotchkes such as the guitar picks that were included in previous Pure Jerry titles) this double-disc composite of four 1978 shows makes a statement solely through the music. Everyone involved in the Jerry Garcia Band lineup, including its prestigious leader, sounds deeply immersed in the group camaraderie which, in turn, enhances the live experience for the audience and the performer.

The opening “Mystery Train" is a great example of how deeply Garcia is enjoying ...

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Abram Wilson: Life Paintings

by Chris May
October 24, 2009

Born in Fort Smith, Arkansas but brought up in New Orleans, where he studied at the Center for Creative Artists--alma mater of fellow trumpeters Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard and Nicholas Payton--Abram Wilson relocated to London in 2002. In 2003 he signed to Dune Records, the recording and management home for a number of significant, London-based, black artists. Life Paintings is his third album for the label.Wilson's previous disc, Ride! Ferris Wheel To The Modern Day Delta (Dune, 2007), ...

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Joelle Leandre / George Lewis: Transatlantic Visions

by John Sharpe
October 23, 2009

Forged in the un-air-conditioned furnace that was the 2008 Vision Festival, this set of improvised duets for trombone and bass nonetheless retains the feel of an overheard intimate conversation between two old friends. Perhaps it should, for trombonist George Lewis and French bassist extraordinaire Jo ...

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Bobby Bradford: With John Stevens and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble

by Clifford Allen
October 23, 2009

Bobby Bradford With John Stevens and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble Nessa Records 2009

In the instances that European and American improvisers have commingled and produced concerts and recordings, especially in the halcyon days of European free improvisation (the 1970s), a significant number of these situations resulted from expatriation. And it's certainly true that in many cases, American-born improvisers could have done better financially being based in Europe--after all, this music has a track record ...

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Fire!: You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago

by John Kelman
October 23, 2009

Mats Gustafsson and the word “accessible" are rarely found in the same sentence. For over two decades, this Swedish reed player has been mining the extreme end of free improvisation and cued composition with like-minded players including Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, and The Thing, his ongoing collective with bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago may not exactly be rife for radio play, but its preponderance of potent grooves does temper the more ...

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Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky / Andrei Kondakov / Vladimir Volkov: In Search Of A Standard

by Glenn Astarita
October 23, 2009

The cleverness of improvisation plays an integral part of this Russian trio's compositions that merely reference jazz standards. The artists reconfigure and loosely interpret while injecting their personal insights. The program consists of thoroughly imaginative compositional vehicles, equating to a rather novel and prismatic string of musical iterations, spanning a wide spectrum of aspects.

“Don't Take The “B" Train" is the trio's reference to Duke Ellington's “Take The “A" Train," and is a freewheeling jaunt, spiked with avant-garde ...

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Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary

by Chris May
October 23, 2009

Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary Stephen Calt Paperback; 320 pages ISBN: 978-0-252-007660-2 Hardback: 320 pages ISBN: 978-0-252-03347-6 University of Illinois Press 2009

Unlike most dictionaries of jazz and blues language, of which bandleader Cab Calloway's Hepsters Dictionary and the glossary included in clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow's Really The Blues, both published in the mid 1940s, are probably the best known, there's no danger of ...

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Chad Taylor: Circle Down

by Troy Collins
October 23, 2009

In-demand indie rock session player (Sam Prekop, Iron and Wine) and co-founder of the Chicago Underground with Rob Mazurek, drummer Chad Taylor has quickly become an indispensable part of the New York scene since his relocation from Chicago in 2000. His recurrent collaborations with Cooper-Moore, Jemeel Moondoc, and Marc Ribot feature his talents in a wide variety of settings, but none quite as dynamic as the ensemble documented on Circle Down, the debut of his trio with pianist Angelica Sanchez ...

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Enjoy Jazz Festival: Days 1-2, October 20-21, 2009

by John Kelman
October 23, 2009

Days 1-2 | Day 3-6 | Days 7-10 | Days 11-12 Situated along the Neckar River in the central part of Germany, Heidelberg may seem like an unlikely place for a six-week jazz festival in the middle of the fall each year. But Enjoy Jazz, now in its eleventh year, has been bringing an innovative cross-section of jazz and beyond to the region, with an unusual concept that runs contrary to virtually every other well-known jazz festival. Rather ...