Jazz Articles

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Another Timbre Byways: CD-R Improv Diaries

by John Eyles
October 2, 2009

Since its inception Another Timbre has regularly released low-priced CD-Rs (on its Byways imprint) to supplement its main CD catalogue. The label has used its latest batch of CD-Rs to document musicians living in or passing through London in March and April of 2009, so they function as a kind of audio diary or sketchbook. The London improvising scene is vibrant and dynamic, so such documentation plays a valuable role in capturing it before it moves on.

Although they are ...

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e.s.t.: Retrospective: The Very Best of e.s.t.

by John Kelman
October 2, 2009

Swedish pianist Esbjörn Svensson's accidental death in 2008 shook the jazz world, with AAJ news items surrounding his passing garnering tens of thousands of reads. Already jazz superstars in Europe, Svensson and e.s.t. were still building a North American audience, touring regularly to gradually grow its fan base; clearly it was working. All the more tragic, then, that the trio had just put the finishing touches to Leucocyte (ACT, 2008), a significant evolutionary leap forward. Where the group would have ...

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Michele Giuliani / Reunion Platz: Roots

by Achille Brunazzi
October 2, 2009

With Roots, the young and talented Italian pianist/composer Michele Giuliani leads a new wave of African jazz, achieving an innovative approach to world music.

Giuliani's ensemble magnificently joins different styles and musical cultures together. Africa remains the main source of inspiration, but folk, jazz and blues highlight the group's presence on the beautiful “'Till the End of the World," and on Giuliani's piano solo tribute to Miriam Makeba, “Saduva."

The music of Roots is mainly based on Afro melodies, where ...

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Johnny Varro: Two Legends of Jazz

by Joel Roberts
October 2, 2009

Though they're separated by nearly 30 years in age, veteran pianist Johnny Varro and clarinetist Ken Peplowski are a perfectly matched pair. Varro, born in Brooklyn in 1930, has been a leading proponent of small-group swing since the '50s, appearing over his long career with the likes of Pee Wee Russell, Buck Clayton and Eddie Condon. Nearing 80, he remains active on the festival and club circuit, still playing in the elegant, Teddy Wilson-inspired style that's been his hallmark for ...

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Alex Coke/Tina Marsh/Steve Feld: It's Possible

by Elliott Simon
October 2, 2009

With the passing of Tina Marsh this past June (2009), the Creative Opportunity Orchestra or CO2 for short, lost its earthly voice and artistic visionary. While her CO2 is grand in scope, it most recently spawned this intimate meeting of her extraordinary voice, tenor saxophonist/flutist Alex Coke and Steven Feld who plays ashiwa, an African bass rhythm box. Marsh is in superb form here and her voice thrills, especially in the higher registers, as it dovetails beautifully ...

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52nd Monterey Jazz Festival Presents Best of Old and New

by Larry Taylor
October 1, 2009

52nd Annual Monterey Jazz FestivalMonterey FairgroundsMonterey, CaliforniaSeptember 18-20, 2009

Three Generations of Pianists, a celebration of piano jazz, spotlighting a family of greats from Jason Moran through Dave Brubeck, highlighted the 2009 Monterey Jazz Festival at Monterey County Fairgrounds in Northern California. And surprisingly, celebrated folk legend Pete Seeger got the loudest cheers for his eyebrow-raising appearance.

As always, Monterey was a movable feast with music taking place in four venues simultaneously. ...

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Roberto Magris Trio: Kansas City Outbound

by Dan McClenaghan
October 1, 2009

Italian pianist Roberto Magris has, much in the mode of American piano icon Jessica Williams, melded multiple influences to shape his style. He channels McCoy Tyner, John Coltrane's pianist in his 1960's rise to jazz stardom, on Kansas City Outbound's opener/title tune. Dense chords and a powerful percussive attack are the well-executed game plan for the tune. Considering the bassist on this piano trio set, the connection's not surprising. In a small degree of Coltrane/Tyner separation, the late Art Davis, ...

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Chuck Owen & the Jazz Surge / Swiss Jazz Orchestra / The Aggregation

by Jack Bowers
October 1, 2009

Chuck Owen & the Jazz Surge The Comet's Tail MAMA Records 2009

On The Comet's Tail, Chuck Owen's superb Florida-based Jazz Surge performs the compositions--yes, compositions--of the late great tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker. As Owen writes in the liner notes, “[Michael's] blinding brilliance as a performer / improviser...may have inadvertently overshadowed or simply redirected attention away from his output and effectiveness as a composer."

The Surge helps redress that shortcoming via a ...

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Egberto Gismonti: Saudacoes

by John Kelman
October 1, 2009

It's been over a decade since Egberto Gismonti released the ambitiously symphonic Meeting Point (ECM, 1997). Saudações continues to expand this Brazilian composer/pianist/guitarist's ouevre, with one disc devoted to a sprawling, seven-part work for Camerata Romeu, a 16-piece Cuban string ensemble; and the second an intimate series of guitar duets and solos, featuring Gismonti and his son, Alexandre. Like the dual-context (but differently configured) Sanfona (ECM, 1981) in its demonstratatin of two very different sides to Gismonti, Saudações remains an ...

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Various Artists: Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae

by Chris May
October 1, 2009

The lovingly conceived, brilliantly executed, multi-platform Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae aims to achieve the same sort of museum piece-to-modernity transformation for Jamaican rocksteady that Buena Vista Social Club (World Circuit, 1996) created for Cuban music of an earlier era. As with Buena Vista, there's a CD, a movie and a package tour. The CD features eight surviving rocksteady vocal stars of the late 1960s revoicing some of their biggest hits of the era (or those of departed contemporaries), accompanied ...