Jazz Articles

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Clean Feed Records: Eat the Plate

by Mark Corroto
October 20, 2009

Clean Feed records, founded in 2001, has been the most prolific and adventurous label for jazz this new century. Based in Lisbon, Portugal their offerings have included many of jazz's old guard including reed players Evan Parker, Paul Dunmall, Charles Gayle, Vinny Golia and Anthony Braxton and trumpeters Dennis Gonzalez and Herb Robertson, along with current innovators bassist Joe Morris and reed players Ken Vandermark, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Tony Malaby, to name just a few.

Clean Feed's reach seemingly has ...

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Bobby Bradford, Tom Heasley, Ken Rosser: Varistar

by Bruce Lindsay
October 20, 2009

Recorded in Los Angeles in 1999, but mixed and released ten years later by tubaist Tom Heasley and Kronos Quartet engineer Scott Fraser, Varistar is a moody and atmospheric work from three experienced improvisers. Its predominantly slow and introspective feel of its seven improvised pieces create, at times, an almost claustrophobic intensity. The opening “Delicious Red" is driven by cornetist Bobby Bradford's fine playing. In fact, Bradford is the most consistently inventive player across the album--Heasley lacks ...

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Anna Estrada: Obsesion

by Raul d'Gama Rose
October 20, 2009

When Elis Regina died, most Brazilians thought that the vacuum created by her loss could not be filled. Then along came Rosa Passos and Anna Estrada. The two vocalists did not jostle for a position in the vacant slot that Regina left behind, however both have filled it individually with the extraordinary breadth and scope of their talent. Passos stays within the Brazilian ethos more often than not, and if Obsesion is anything to go by, then Estrada appears to ...

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Anthony Coleman: Freakish

by Warren Allen
October 19, 2009

Great composers put heavy demands on the people who play their music. No matter how long ago they wrote the tunes that continue inspire after they are gone, their presence continues to hover over the music, almost haunting the pianos that would crank out their concertos and rags. It takes work to deal with these ghosts. Perhaps this is why it took Anthony Coleman five years to complete his special tribute of the music of Jelly Roll Morton.

Coleman is ...

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Jason Adasiewicz's Rolldown: Varmint

by Troy Collins
October 19, 2009

Varmint is the sophomore follow up to Rolldown (482 Music, 2008), the self-titled debut of vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz's quintet. Inspired by the avant-garde innovations of such late 1960s Blue Note recording artists as Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Bobby Hutcherson, Jackie McLean, and Grachan Moncur III, Adasiewicz continues to explore the tenuous divide between inside and outside forms, while gradually developing his own sound.

From supple kaleidoscopic shadings to ringing, metallic cascades, Adasiewicz's dynamic versatility as an improviser has ...

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David S. Ware Quartet: Live in Vilnius

by Clifford Allen
October 19, 2009

David S. Ware Live in Vilnius No Business 2009

The year 2009 could be a rather big year for tenor saxophonist and improvising composer David S. Ware, and that's saying a lot. After all, Ware has long been one of the most celebrated figures in free jazz, owing not only to his work with artists like pianist Cecil Taylor and percussionists Andrew Cyrille and Beaver Harris, but also his longstanding quartet, which was founded ...

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Lama: Look What You Made Us Do

by John Kelman
October 19, 2009

Its performance rattled more than a few cages at Punkt 2008, in Kristiansand, Norway. Still, Lama's debut, Guidebook to Lamaland (Spoon Train Audio, 2008), was really a solo album hiding beneath a group name, with the exception of one cathartic live track that featured the full group. Lama's sophomore disc, Look What You Made Us Do, is still the brainchild of the group's leader, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Nils Marten Larsen. But this time it's a flat-out group effort and, consequently, ...

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The State of Classical Music 2009: Andras Schiff and Rolf Lislevand

by C. Michael Bailey
October 19, 2009

Contrary to popular belief, “classical" music is not dull, static or lifeless. Rather, it is a dynamic creative event that is as fresh as its most recent performance. It is also untrue that improvisation has no place in “classical" performance. Both Mozart and Beethoven were very capable improvisers of their own and others' compositions.

Capturing these unconventional creative elements in recordings is what made ECM Records the Classic FM Gramophone Award 2009 Classical Label. Two splendid examples, one of the ...

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Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Quintet: Bien Bien!

by Woodrow Wilkins
October 19, 2009

"Well, well" is one English translation for Bien Bein!, by the Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Quintet. “Good, good" is another. Either is appropriate for this collection of nine songs. Wallace, a trombonist, composer and arranger, has been named “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition" in the Down Beat Critics' Poll, and has shared the stage with a range of performers including Ray Charles, Celine Dion, Carlos Santana and John Lee Hooker. Pianist Murray Low, bassist David Belove, percussionist Michael Spiro ...

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Take Five With Sylvia Brooks

by AAJ Staff
October 18, 2009

The content of this article has been updated since its 2009 publish date. Meet Sylvia Brooks: Since the release of her captivating debut, 2009's Dangerous Liaisons, jazz vocalist Sylvia Brooks has displayed a gift for inhabiting different personas, with a subspecialty in film-noir inspired femmes fatale. On her fourth album, Signature, she embraces the most challenging role of all, defining herself with a set of beautifully crafted original songs. Her evocative lyrics and emotionally direct delivery imbue the ...