Jazz Articles

like 289

Gerry Hemingway Twofer: Less is More & Demon Chaser

by Kurt Gottschalk
October 3, 2009

WHO Trio Less is More Clean Feed 2009 Gerry Hemingway Quintet Demon Chaser hatOLOGY 2009 Much seems to have gone down in the decade since Michel Wintsch, Gerry Hemingway and Banz Oester released Identity on Leo. That was a solid piano jazz record with hints of the quietude that was, apparently, to come. For ...

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Solo Piano: Cyrus Chestnut, John Hicks & Ray Bryant

by Marcia Hillman
October 3, 2009

Cyrus ChestnutSpiritJazz Legacy Productions2009 John HicksI Remember YouHighNote2009 Ray BryantIn The Back RoomEvening Star2009 Playing solo piano requires, among other things, a distinctive style and enough musical ideas to hold a listener's interest over a period of time. Three new releases feature players amply endowed with ...

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New Morning Paris Concert

by Chris Kompanek
October 3, 2009

Al Foster New Morning Paris Concert Inakustik 2009

Al Foster played with Miles Davis for several years in the '70s, appearing on Get Up With It, On The Corner, Big Fun, Dark Magus, Agharta, and reuniting with him in the '80s for The Man With The Horn, We Want Miles, Star People, Decoy and You're Under Arrest. And the drummer was one of the few people to stay in contact with him ...

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Globe Unity: Denmark

by Tom Greenland
October 3, 2009

Jesper Løvdal Free Fall Ilk 2008 Thunderstrucks Thunderstrucks Blackout 2008 Jonas Westergaard Helgoland Sundance Music 2008

Denmark has nurtured an active jazz scene since the '20s and Copenhagen has been home to expatriate musicians since the '50s. Today, Danish artists like Jesper Løvdal, ...

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Duke Ellington London and New York 1963-1964 The Great Concerts, The Duke of Elegant - Gems From the Duke Ellington Songbook

by Andrew Velez
October 3, 2009

Duke EllingtonThe Great Concerts (London & New York 1963-1964) Musicmasters-Nimbus 2009 Various ArtistsThe Duke of ElegantHighNote2009 “First of all the kids in the band want you to know they love you madly" are debonair Duke Ellington's playful opening remarks on this live concert set. Those “kids" he refers to are an incredible array of ...

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Bobby Hutcherson: Pushing The Vibes Forward

by Robert Iannapollo
October 3, 2009

Grachan Moncur III Evolution Blue Note 1963 John Coltrane / Archie Shepp New Thing At Newport Impulse 1965 Bobby Hutcherson Head On Blue Note 1971 Bobby Hutcherson is now comfortably ensconced in jazz history as one of the great vibraphonists of the post-Milt Jackson generation. He ...

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Eric Dolphy: Out To Lunch! - 45 rpm Reissue

by Matt Marshall
October 2, 2009

Eric Dolphy Out To Lunch! Blue Note / Music Matters 2009 (1964)

Few jazz fans still need an introduction to reed player Eric Dolphy's 1964 masterpiece, Out to Lunch!. It's an album people tend to come to fairly early on in their love affair with the music (assuming, that is, the affair started after the early 1960s), and serves as a meeting ground for a wide scope of fans, be they stalwarts of bop, ...

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Edwin Berg / Eric Surmenian / Fred Jeanne: Perpetuum

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
October 2, 2009

With Perpetuum, Dutch pianist Edwin Berg and his band mates enter an increasingly crowded field: to wit, piano trios that seem, consciously or otherwise, to worship at the shrine of Brad Mehldau. Any number of new-ish pianists on the scene have released records ranging in quality from good to excellent--Aaron Goldberg's Worlds (Sunnyside, 2006); Florian Weber's Minsarah (Justin Time, 2006); Florian Ross's Big Fish & Small Pond (Intuition, 2007); John Chin's Blackout Conception (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2008)--in this Mehldauvian ...

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The Freddie Hubbard Tribute Band at the Indianapolis Jazz Festival

by AAJ Staff
October 2, 2009

The Freddie Hubbard Tribute BandIndianapolis Jazz FestivalIndianapolis, IndianaSept 25, 2009When losing a trumpeter of such sterling agility, originality and influence as Freddie Hubbard, it's only natural to pay tribute to his passing. So it was at the Madame Walker Theater in Indianapolis on September 25th under the direction of jazz educator David Baker, another local musical legend and a contemporary of Hubbard's.What made the difference was the band of brothers that Baker congregated ...

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Gunhild Seim & Time Jungle: Morpho

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 2, 2009

Stavanger, Norway-based Gunhild Seim & Time Jungle's sophomore release delivers further evidence of trumpeter Seim's mature compositional skills, also featured on her debut, Time Jungle (Drollehola Records, 2009). Seim matches intensity and adventurous improvisation--typical of improvisers coming from her hometown such as reed player Frode Gjerstad and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love--with nuanced, melodic lines of chamber jazz that are identified with the ECM style of Nordic jazz, all fused into organic, collective interplay. Seim is accompanied by an ...