Jazz Articles

like 513

Monk's Music and the Guitar

by Bobby Broom
October 12, 2009

As a guitarist whose love for jazz music began in the '70s, I was understandably excited to hear a few months ago, from a most reliable source, that Thelonious Monk really dug guitarist George Benson! Benson was probably the most popular jazz guitarist of the '70s and those who know about the place of the guitar in jazz history understand that he stands among the elite few of all time. Apparently, Monk was attracted to the same thing that a ...

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Paul Giallorenzo: Get In To Go Out

by Mark Corroto
October 12, 2009

Pianist Paul Giallorenzo locates the jazz he makes with his quintet somewhere in the early 1960s, when post-bop was getting ready to explode into free jazz and its pioneers were rooted in swing, but thinking outward thoughts. Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch (Blue Note, 1964), Ornette Coleman's Tomorrow Is The Question (Contemporary, 1959), and Andrew Hill's Point Of Departure(Blue Note, 1964) come to mind.

Even the sound on Get In To Get Out hints at a Blue Note session, with ...

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Thelonious Monk: Pianists Riff on Monk

by George Kanzler
October 12, 2009

This month, over a dozen pianists will participate in a free concert, Thelonious Monk at 92, at the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan. Seven of them, and two other pianists with an abiding interest in Monk, answered questions about Monk's music and more specifically, his piano playing, as influence and inspiration. Jazz pianists may disagree about whether or not Thelonious Monk was the “high priest" of bebop who, in Geri Allen's words, “set the tone for ...

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Take Five With Les Blachut

by AAJ Staff
October 12, 2009

Meet Les Blachut:Les Blachut is a performing and recording artist. He is a multi-instrumentalist; keyboards, mallet percussion, vibraphone, marimba, steel-pans, arranger, composer, mobile and studio recording engineer, music teacher, private instructor, music competition judge, and radio program producer. Blachut is a South Florida-based versatile musician experienced in jazz improvisation, ethnic music world-wide, experimental collaborations, fusion of contrasting styles, and skilled in many music- related fields of expertise such as: music production, engineering, broadcasting, audio equipment and computer technology.

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Kenny & Leah: You and the Night and the Music

by Edward Blanco
October 12, 2009

A perfect marriage of saxophone and voice, saxophonist Kenny Soderblom and his wife, vocalist Leah McCoy Soderblom, pay tribute to great American jazz standards in a intimate and sensuous performance with You and the Night and the Music. Leah lends her sultry vocals, delivering a host of love songs from the title track to “Dancing In the Dark," “The Look of Love," “Let's Fall in Love" and the finale medley of “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart/The Trolley Song." ...

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Jesse Elder: The Winding Shell

by Raul d'Gama Rose
October 12, 2009

Pianist Jesse Elder has no time for linear melodies, or logical, arithmetical rhythms. Still, on The Winding Shell, he shows himself to be a rather clever master of song form. In prismatic style, he lights up his tunes with refracted luminous and melodic excursions. He plays these around the musicians who augment his obtuse schematics, and receives an almost revered response--not for his leadership, but rather for the solemn musical ground that some of them cover. There is also a ...

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Marty Ehrlich: Things Have Got To Change

by Stuart Broomer
October 12, 2009

The clarity that's so immediately apparent in Marty Ehrlich's alto sound permeates his work, so that there's a quality at once naked and luminous in the music heard here. The quartet with trumpeter James Zollar, cellist Erik Friedlander and drummer Pheeroan akLaff and the concept harkens back to the early Ornette Coleman Quartet, each member committed to an intense lyricism, an insistence on the emotional power of blues and hymn. There are moments in the opening “Rites Rhythm" that even ...

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The MacroQuarktet: Each Part a Whole: Live at the Stone

by Sean Patrick Fitzell
October 12, 2009

Pushing the boundaries of spontaneous expression, one of trumpeter Herb Robertson's latest projects is the MacroQuarktet with fellow trumpeter Dave Ballou and the formidable rhythm tandem of bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey. Eschewing a blitzkrieg approach, the three improvisations on Each Part a Whole exude deliberative patience with ideas tested and developed into longer narrative arcs. Both trumpeters make imaginative use of mutes, other valve instruments (flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, cornet) and found objects (electric megaphones, ...

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Roberta Gambarini: Making Listeners Fall 'So In Love'

by R.J. DeLuke
October 12, 2009

It's been an out-of-the-ordinary career trip for Roberta Gambarini--a trip that's seen her go from a young girl in Italy, scatting along with records by American singers Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, to struggling to get singing gigs in her native land, to grabbing an opportunity to come to the United States, to gaining recognition by respected elders like Benny Carter, James Moody, Clark Terry and nonagenarian pianist Hank Jones, who has proclaimed her “the best jazz singer to emerge ...

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Marty Ehrlich Rites Quartet: Things Have Got To Change

by Troy Collins
October 11, 2009

One of the seminal artists of the New York Loft jazz scene, composer and multi-instrumentalist Julius Hemphill (1938-1995) left a diverse legacy that lives on through the tireless efforts of saxophonist Tim Berne and multi-instrumentalist Marty Ehrlich. Hemphill's earthy forays with cellist Abdul Wadud in the early seventies broke new stylistic ground, unapologetically drawing inspiration from funk, soul and R&B. His inventive writing for unconventional instrumental combinations was further realized as a founding member of the World Saxophone Quartet and ...