Jazz Articles

like 256

Take Five With Jim Brimer

by AAJ Staff
July 25, 2009

Meet Jim Brimer: I am Jim Brimer, a jazz clarinetist that leads a group called Jim's Jazz Band which plays traditional jazz residing in Fort Worth, Texas. Brian Harvey of EuroClub de Jazz in the United Kingdom says “The Jim of Jim's Jazz Band is the highly experienced and very talented clarinetist Jim Brimer, who's been around the Texan jazz scene for many years. Together with the other players of his band he plays down home straight-ahead traditional jazz".

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Mario Grigorov: Paris to Cuba

by Bridget A. Arnwine
July 25, 2009

Pianist/composer Mario Grigorov's Paris to Cuba conjures up a number of images before a single note has been heard. Both Paris and Cuba are culturally rich and have been major players in the development of jazz, but the two are often portrayed in very different ways: one, often celebrated as a dream destination, filled with beautiful people; the other relegated as a place people have risked their lives to escape; one regarded as a city full of high fashion donning, ...

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The Big Four Quintet: Sanctified

by Jakob Baekgaard
July 24, 2009

There are few acts that sound like a grab bag of genres while having its own sound, but this is true of The Big Four Quintet (now abbreviated as TB4Q). The band's hallmark has become a curious eclecticism, bringing in styles as diverse as rock n' roll, blues, New Orleans jazz, funk, lounge, swing and world music, and cooking it all up into one steaming stew.

In that sense, the title of TB4Q's second album is highly ironic, because if ...

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Diminuendo and Crescendo

by Mitch Myers
July 24, 2009

This excerpt appears in The Boy Who Cried Freebird: Rock & Roll Fables and Sonic Storytelling (Harper Paperbacks, 2008).I tried calling my good pal Harlan the other day. I needed some help with my computer and if anyone knows about computers, it's Harlan. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, my friend was nowhere to be found. Instead, Harlan's voicemail greeting confronted me.“Hi, I'm not home right now," his voice explained. “This is Paul Gonsalves' saxophone solo from 'Diminuendo ...

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Vision Festival 2009: Day 7 Finale

by John Sharpe
July 24, 2009

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

Jason Kao Hwang's Spontaneous River / Trio X / Patricia Nicholson Dance / William Parker Quartet 14th Annual Vision Festival Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts New York City June 15, 2009

For the final night of the Vision Festival the setting switched to the Angel Orensanz Foundation just a few ...

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John Stowell: Solitary Tales

by John Barron
July 24, 2009

An entire disc of solo, improvised guitar music could easily run the risk of sounding like one continuous tune. Fortunately, Portand, Oregon-based guitarist John Stowell applies enough depth and open-minded searching to his nylon-string guitar to keep things interesting throughout Solitary Tales. The eleven-track disc was recorded live at the home of master guitar luthier Mike Doolin, who builds guitars for Stowell. Relying heavily on single-note lines, the guitarist seems to pull arching motifs out of thin air, eschewing clichés ...

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Doublestandard Featuring Lee "Scratch" Perry + Alpha Blondy At Central Park Summerstage

by Ernest Barteldes
July 24, 2009

Doublestandard with Lee “Scratch" Perry; Alpha BlondyCentral Park SummerstageRumsey Playfield New York, New YorkJuly 19, 2009

Central Park Summerstage was filled to capacity for this much-awaited double bill featuring two of reggae's biggest stars: veteran Jamaican producer, arranger and singer Lee “Scratch" Perry and Ivory Coast-born Alpha Blondy, who reportedly decided to become a professional musician while attending a Burning Spear concert at this very venue over two decades ago.

The afternoon started ...

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Trio 3 + Geri Allen: At This Time

by Nic Jones
July 24, 2009

The trio of Lake, Workman and Cyrille is, by now, seasoned in the right way. All three players are relative veterans and the depth of their shared musical understanding is obvious in everything they do. This time, Geri Allen's pianist's skill is an amalgam of Paul Bley and Andrew Hill harmonically speaking, though it's only fair to emphasize that such names are merely points of reference, to accentuate the self-contained nature of her musical output.

All the experience implied here ...

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Willie Oteri / Dave Laczko: WD-41

by Glenn Astarita
July 24, 2009

The conceptual, avant-garde mode of electronics-based implementations receives a slender uplift, thanks to guitarist and effects maestro Willie Oteri's collaboration with trumpeter Dave Laczko. This 2009, download-only, release is a spacey trip; chock full of loops, streaming synth noises, and fractured sojourns into the cosmic void.

Oteri's résumé includes collaborations with latter-day King Crimson musicians and former Frank Zappa hired guns, among other notables. In light of this, he's obviously well-seasoned in the progressive rock realm, amid the ...

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Take Five With Tommaso Cappellato

by AAJ Staff
July 24, 2009

Meet Tommaso Cappellato: Italian drummer and composer Tommaso Cappellato always strived to leave his mark as the founder and creator of numerous musical situations. His curiosity for different styles and continuous will for research led him to travel and explore various countries in the world to meet, learn from and collaborate with influential musical artists.

During his nine-year stay in New York Cappellato completed his education at the New School University where he studied with notable artists such as Richie ...