Jazz Articles

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J.S. Bach's Problem Child: Die Kunst Der Fuge (The Art of Fugue)

by C. Michael Bailey
September 26, 2009

Old man Johann Sebastian Bach begat 20 children by two wives. Those that lived to adulthood turned out pretty good. Rather, it was one of the children Bach created that went bad, his last one, Die Kunst Der Fuge (The Art of Fugue), and it killed him on July 28, 1750. Okay, it was old age and not this piece of music that killed Bach. Nevertheless, TAOF is not without its intrigue and controversy.

Bach began his counterpoint magnum opus ...

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Lawrence Blatt: The Color of Sunshine

by Raul d'Gama Rose
September 26, 2009

The magical ability of music, not just to entertain the senses but to touch the auditory nerves and to trigger a flood of emotions, has never been in doubt. Some music can lay claim to unlocking the mysterious ingredients that strike such subliminal chords. To do it with unabashed grace is also rare. Somehow Lawrence Blatt found this and brings it to the fore on The Color of Sunshine. Of course, it helps that Blatt is a ...

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Larry Vuckovich and the Euro Trash Band at the Douglas Beach House, Half Moon Bay, CA

by Bill Leikam
September 26, 2009

Larry Vuckovich's Euro Trash BandDouglas Beach HouseHalf Moon Bay, CASept. 6, 2009 World renowned pianist Larry Vuckovich (of Montenegro), bassist Buca Necak (Serbia), drummer Paul Van Wageningen (Holland), Latin percussionist Hector Lugo (Puerto Rico), and featured vocalist Valeriana Quevedo (USA) gathered at the Douglas Beach House on a Sunday afternoon as Vuckovich's Euro Trash Band. Trash they were not but they did bring to the Beach House variations on an ...

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Paulette Dozier: 2009 Cornbread Tour

by Edward Blanco
September 26, 2009

Paulette Dozier: Cornbread TourGreenville, South Carolina to New York, New YorkJune 25-July 4, 2009

Miami-based jazz vocalist, actress and voice-over professional Paulette Dozier recently completed a whirlwind Eastern coast tour centering on small and intimate venues where audiences could be no more than a hundred people, lending to what the performing artist describes as a more “up close and personal" experience with her music. The intimate circumstances led her to choose the title Cornbread Tour, a theme ...

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The Plunge Trio with Bobo Stenson: Origo

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 26, 2009

Origo is the Malmö, Sweden-based Plunge Trio's second collaboration with acclaimed fellow countryman/pianist Bobo Stenson, following Plunge with Bobo Stenson (Kopasetic Productions, 2005). This excellent trio's fourth release presents them at their best. The core group--Andreas Andersson on alto and baritone saxophones, bassist Mattias Hjorth and drummer Peter Nilsson on drums--always opts for patient, spontaneous improvisation that highlights slow development of form and structure upon fiery bursts of free playing. The collaboration with Stenson enriches both sides, and enables this ...

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Roger Rosenberg: Baritonality

by Raul d'Gama Rose
September 25, 2009

Even in the day when the sound of baritone voices like Ernie Cacares, Harry Carney, Charlie Fowlkes and Joe Temperley streaked across the sonic stratosphere, solos were graceful, granular and short. It was only when Cecil Payne, Gerry Mulligan,, Pepper Adams and a handful of other players up until Hamiet Bluiett,, John Surman and Howard Johnson began to growl and bellow loudly that significant soloing on the baritone horn came to be featured at length. Bluiett also developed a significant ...

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Sunny Murray Trio at The Vortex in London

by John Sharpe
September 25, 2009

Sunny Murray Trio The Vortex London, England September 1, 2009

Two nights in north London with free-jazz drum pioneer Sunny Murray's European Trio was a prospect to set the pulse racing. That expectancy was widely shared, it appeared, as there was standing room only even on the second evening. Murray first found a way to shift beyond his bebop roots to pit a shimmering rhythmic undertow against Cecil Taylor's new thing in ...

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Josh Berman / Aram Shelton / Weasel Walter: Last Distractions

by Mark Corroto
September 25, 2009

Last Distractions is a highly ambitious project, undertaken with just two horns and a drummer--three horns, actually, as reedist Aram Shelton plays two different ones. This trio of Shelton, cornetist Josh Berman and drummer Weasel Walter has set its sights on a determined and inspiring set of improvised music.

The Chicago jazz scene is the inspiration for this trio, as all three made their names in the new milieu of jazz that the Windy City spawned in the 1990s. Walter ...

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Three Pairs of Aces - Wild!

by Chris M. Slawecki
September 25, 2009

Corina Bartra & Her Azu Project Afro Peruvian Jazz Celebration Blue Spiral Music 2009

Corina Bartra does more than compose and sing in a style that merges music from North and South America--she lives this style by splitting her days between her native Peru and adopted hometown of New York City. Celebration, her fifth release, blends traditional Afro-Peruvian music with contemporary vocal and instrumental jazz, a fusion brought to life by her band of ...

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Join #jazzlives and Show 'em!

by Fradley Garner
September 25, 2009

WITH THE JAZZ PUBLIC “SHRINKING," a new group of activists formed a “#jazzlives" campaign on Twitter to buck the trend. Surveys by the National Endowment for the Arts picture jazz being viewed by ever more Americans as a high-culture art form, like classical music. Fewer are hearing it live than at any time since the late 1940s. Sparked by the New York-based author and critic Howard Mandel, the campaign aims to use the Internet networking platform, Twitter, to show that ...