Jazz Articles

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Paul Giallorenzo: Get In To Go Out

by Troy Collins
October 13, 2009

The 15th album in 482 Records' Document Chicago Series, Get In To Go Out is the debut of pianist Paul Giallorenzo's quintet. One of the few free-leaning pianists working in the Windy City's vital new music scene, Giallorenzo's angular approach towards writing and improvising draws inspiration from the seminal Post-War innovations of such pianists as Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, and early Cecil Taylor.

As co-founder and director of the creative non-profit Elastic Arts, Giallorenzo entertains a range of ...

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The State of the Trombone 2009: Steve Davis and Luis Bonilla

by C. Michael Bailey
October 13, 2009

Jazz offers ample opportunity to hear diametrically opposed ideas and approaches coming from similar ensembles (and sometimes the same ensemble, as with saxophonist John Coltrane). Consider, on one side, the middle-of-the-road, mainstream, standards jazz made early on by trumpeter Miles Davis and the free jazz of saxophonist Ornette Coleman. The trombone has had players in both corners as different as Al Grey and Roswell Rudd, Jack Teagarden and Grachan Moncur. Here are two similarly dissimilar trombonists, Steve Davis and Luis ...

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The State of the Piano 2009: Cyrus Chestnut and Jessica Williams

by C. Michael Bailey
October 13, 2009

The jazz palette is long and wide. Within any given performance format there exist seminal artists as different as saxophonists John Coltrane and Lester Young, trumpeters Miles Davis and Lester Bowie, and pianists Art Tatum and Gene Harris.

When speaking of solo piano performances, two beacons performing today are Cyrus Chestnut and Jessica Williams. Excellent composers and performers, Chestnut and Williams illustrate how polar approaches can lead to the same sublime place.

Cyrus ChestnutSpirit ...

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Eyal Maoz's Edom: Hope and Destruction

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 13, 2009

The second release of New York-based Israeli guitarist Eyal Maoz alt-klezmer quartet Edom is a schizophrenic one. On one hand, Maoz faithfully follows Tzadik founder John Zorn's hybridized post-modern pastiche of klezmer and Jewish musical traditions, and musical references that are typical of the label's Radical Jewish Culture series. This is most audible in the manner that Maoz adopts the angst and skronk style of Zorn's leading guitarist in his Jewish-related projects, Marc Ribot. On the other hand, this release ...

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Gary Peacock / Marc Copland: Insight

by Dan McClenaghan
October 13, 2009

At this point, pianist Marc Copland (born 1948) and bassist Gary Peacock (born 1939) have achieved high priest status in the jazz world. Peacock's quarter-plus century run in Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio is legendary and ongoing, aside from his numerous other outings as a sideman, and a handful of sets in the leader's seat. Copland is a musician (early on, a saxophonist) who didn't sit down at the piano with serious intent until he was an adult. He has become ...

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Fay Victor: The Freesong Suite

by Wilbur MacKenzie
October 13, 2009

Vocalist Fay Victor first appeared in the New York scene in the early '90s but soon moved to the Netherlands, returning in 2003. Victor's years abroad proved to be quite influential on her work, with a slightly Dutch aesthetic informing a quirky blend of absurdism, poetic lyricism and blues-influenced jazz styling. On The Freesong Suite, rather than presenting each tune on its own, the works are collaged together amidst an ongoing collective improvisation. Room 1407 starts things ...

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Stanley Clarke: Jazz in the Garden

by Terrell Kent Holmes
October 13, 2009

Bassist Stanley Clarke has explored many musical genres throughout his storied career, crossing and re-crossing musical boundaries to collaborate with everyone from Art Blakey and Joe Henderson to Chick Corea and Al Di Meola. So it's surprising that Jazz in the Garden is his maiden voyage as the leader of an acoustic band. Clarke's stylistic diversity is on display throughout this album. He uses his famous fret slapping technique during his solo on “Paradigm Shift." Pianist Hiromi ...

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Mark Levine and the Latin Tinge: Off & On The Music of Moacir Santos

by Raul d'Gama Rose
October 13, 2009

If a record could be like a comet streaking across the musical stratosphere, then Mark Levine's Off & On: The Music of Moacir Santos would be just that. Moreover, in personifying this album like comets are given names, this one would be named after comet Kohoutek because it is a rare gem of a record.It's one of the few occasions in recent times that Moacir Santos, the rarer of two modern Brazilian masters, is being honored. Brazilian music ...

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Portico Quartet: Isla

by Chris May
October 12, 2009

Having created a seismic sensation in Britain with its first album, Knee Deep In The North Sea (Babel, 2007)--which was a Mercury Prize Album Of The Year in 2008--Portico Quartet now releases that “difficult" second album. Can the group better its precocious debut? Yes it can. Portico has grown, as a collective entity and as individual musicians, and it's associating, rewardingly, with some heavy hitters: signed to Peter Gabriel's Real World Records and produced by John Leckie, whose credits include ...

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Cyrus Chestnut: Spirit

by Larry Taylor
October 12, 2009

Cyrus Chestnut was born into the church; his father was a church organist and his mother directed the choir. On this artist's fine solo piano CD, Spirit, he returns to his roots with a selection of gospel songs augmented by a couple of inspirational popular songs from the 1970s. They are played with church-like fervor and a jazz sensibility, and make for a thoroughly enjoyable, uplifting experience.

The first track, “Oh How I Love Jesus," captures the believer's steadfast dedication, ...