Jazz Articles

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Burton Greene / Perry Robinson: Two Voices In The Desert

by Lyn Horton
August 6, 2009

Pianist Burton Greene and clarinetist Perry Robinson have been close friends for a very long time. During those years, they have bonded with a common musical purpose that stems from free expression to the gentle molding of a life perspective. Working together in Greene's groups--Klezmokem and Klez-Edge--the pair has become identifiable with an open and unfettered sound, imbued with Eastern European origins. Outside of these larger groups, Greene and Robinson come together to present a unique and lively duo conversation ...

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Gebhard Ullmann Basement Research: Don't Touch My Music Vol. 2

by Jerry D'Souza
August 6, 2009

When Gebhard Ullmann took his Basement Research into Krakow 's Alchemia Club to celebrate his 50th birthday, he recorded two sets of music. The first was released as Don't Touch My Music, Vol. 1. Like the first, this second set is unedited and unchanged, and shows just how intuitive and empathic the band is.

Ullmann's compositions encapsulate several idioms. He goes from blues to a march, transforming into free idioms without a twinge. And just as his writing is earthy, ...

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Mike Vax Big Band: Sounds From The Road

by Marcia Hillman
August 6, 2009

Featuring no less than a dozen alumni from the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Mike Vax's Big Band displays the drive and spirit of the musical organization that crisscrossed the country from the 1940s. All of the essentials of the Kenton sound are here. A tight and smooth sax section is heard on the opening “Alex's Tune." “La Virgen de la Macarena," the song played at bullfights, has a searing trumpet performance by the leader. There is an easygoing ...

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Isotope: Golden Section

by A. Henkin
August 6, 2009

It is with great sadness that the recent passing of electric bassist Hugh Hopper (1945-2009), one of the most original stylists on his instrument, is mourned. Hopper is best known for his tenure in Soft Machine (part of the Canterbury scene, lumped in with progressive rockers like King Crimson and Frank Zappa, and part of the British jazz fusion world) from 1968-72, as well as later tributes such as Soft Bounds, Softworks and Soft Machine Legacy. But ...

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Eric Revis: Laughter's Necklace of Tears

by David Adler
August 6, 2009

Best known for his decade-plus with the Branford Marsalis Quartet, bassist Eric Revis has also thrived in trio settings with Avram Fefer, Peter Brötzmann and most recently Kurt Rosenwinkel, playing everything from pure straight-ahead to absolutely free. He debuted as a leader in 2004 with Tales of the Stuttering Mime (11:11), and he imbues his sophomore release with a similar toughness, lyricism and sonic variation. Two of the featured players, pianist Orrin Evans and tenor saxophonist Stacy Dillard, are Revis' ...

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Scott Fields Ensemble: Samuel

by Troy Collins
August 5, 2009

The works of Samuel Beckett have been a recurrent source of inspiration for guitarist Scott Fields. Samuel is Fields' second effort at conveying the master's prose through pure sound, following Beckett (Clean Feed, 2007). Transposing the original text of Beckett's plays into precise pitches, chords and time signatures, Fields transforms Beckett's wordplay into melodies and harmonies that share more than a passing resemblance to jazz. Despite their cerebral origins and abstruse character, the ensuing works are in fact fairly accessible.

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Tim Berne: The Subliminal Explorations of a Creative Mind

by Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.
August 5, 2009

Fascinated by unconventional and complex ideas, saxophonist and composer Tim Berne has become a creative force, exploring all the possibilities in sound through his fearless and brilliant imagination. Lloyd Peterson: You didn't start playing the sax until you were about twenty. That would take quite a bit of confidence.Tim Berne: I didn't really think about it. In some ways, the more I played the more secure I became. But at the beginning, it was almost easier ...

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Jacksonville: Big City, Big Band, Big Plans

by Jack Bowers
August 5, 2009

Almost everyone who's even mildly interested knows that the big band scene in the US isn't what it used to be. On the other hand, the big bands aren't yet dead, as some alarmists have claimed, or even on life support. Thanks in part to college and armed services programs, there are perhaps as many or more admirable bands in cities large and small than there were during the peak of the so-called big band era. The problem is, fewer ...

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Traincha w/ Metropole Orchestra: This Girl's In Love: Burt Bacharach Songbook

by Chris May
August 5, 2009

You don't need to be Austin Powers to enjoy Burt Bacharach. The composer is a primogeniture descendant of the geniuses who created the great American songbook--the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, and their contemporaries. Usually in the company of lyricist Hal David, Bacharach wrote and arranged some of the most grown-up chart music of the 1960s, a body of work that enjoyed huge success despite everything--first Bob Dylan, then The Beatles, and finally acid rock--that was thrown at ...

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Miles Davis: That's What Happened: Live in Germany 1987

by John Kelman
August 5, 2009

Miles DavisThat's What Happened: Live in Germany 1987 Eagle Eye Media2009The exhaustive (and expensive) 20CD box set, The Complete Miles Davis at Montreux 1973-1991 (Columbia/Legacy, 2002), finally set the record straight about the late trumpeter's often misunderstood and overly criticized final decade. Admittedly, many of his studio releases were inconsistent and, at times, flat out weak, with his 1985 swan song for Columbia, You're Under Arrest particularly forgettable. But in performance, Davis ...