Jazz Articles

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Take Five With Adam Shulman

by AAJ Staff
July 14, 2009

Meet Adam Shulman: Adam Shulman has been a staple of the San Francisco Jazz scene since he moved to the city in 2002. Before the move, Adam was a student at UC Santa Cruz where he studied with the great Smith Dobson and the trumpeter/arranger Ray Brown. He received his degree in classical performance under the tutelage of the Russian pianist Maria Ezerova. Currently, Adam plays regularly with Marcus Shelby in large and small group contexts and with Anton Schwartz ...

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Tortoise: Beacons Of Ancestorship

by Glenn Astarita
July 14, 2009

Part of the Chicago-based Tortoise's appeal and loyal following is fabricated upon its many-sided musicality, where bits and pieces of retro psychedelia, Euro space-rock, pop overtones and Pink Floyd type walls-of-sound come to fruition. Through it all, and somehow or another, the band propagates a singular identity via probing fuzz-toned guitars, deep bass grooves, streaming synth effects and cohesive thematic overtures.

With only its sixth full-length album, given the unit's twenty-year existence the tantalizing fabrics of sound, featuring ...

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Phosphor: II

by Mark Corroto
July 14, 2009

Phosphor, whose self-titled album came out in 2001, waited nearly five years to record its follow-up with Phosphor II. With editing, mixing and manufacturing, it has taken nearly eight years for the session to reach the marketplace.

With all that time that has passed, it is interesting to hear that the original super group, minus Alessandro Bosetti, can easily pick up right where it left off. These Berlin-based musicians practice the microtonal art of minimalist improvisation, yet their sound constructions ...

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Fred Anderson: Staying in the Game

by Raul d'Gama Rose
July 13, 2009

Of all the tenor saxophonists still making music today, Fred Anderson--like Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and, at times, Wayne Shorter--still has the ability to get under the skin. Anderson's tone is so warm and rich and sensuous that when he sounds a note, it echoes under the body's largest organ, and not necessarily inside the head. Programmatic music tends to be cerebral, but not Fred Anderson's; this is because there is something quite extraordinarily urgent and heartfelt about the music ...

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Gregg Bendian

by Bill Milkowski
July 13, 2009

Since the early '90s, drummer Gregg Bendian has distinguished himself as an adventurous and accomplished player-composer through his sideman work with the likes of Derek Bailey, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, John Zorn, Peter Brotzmann and Pat Metheny while also leading his own Interzone Quartet and Trio Pianissimo. His most recent recording is the startlingly virtuosic solo drum project Research, on his own Aggregate Music label. But Bendian's most passionate undertaking in recent years has been his Mahavishnu Project (MP), the ...

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Jazz Eyes: Eyes and Ears Wide Open

by Jakob Baekgaard
July 13, 2009

In jazz, spontaneity is essential. It can also be useful when setting up a label. So it's no great coincidence that, once the Italian jazz enthusiasts Paolo Siculiana and Toti Cannistraro realized they both loved the production and distribution of records, their Jazz Eyes label rapidly became a reality. “The story starts on a dark night," Siculiana recalls, “when my friend Toti and I were talking about music and how to start a label. And so I said that since ...

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Bill Anschell/Brett Jensen: We Couldn't Agree More

by John Barron
July 13, 2009

We Couldn't Agree More is a great example of what happens when two like-minded musicians gather for an impromptu session, playing through a list of well-worn standards. Pianist Bill Anschell and soprano saxophonist Brent Jensen deliver a relaxed, humorously inventive duo recording that happily swings from beginning to end. Recorded in Boise, Idaho, during a break from a tour of the state (Jensen is an Assistant Professor of Music at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls), ...

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Modern Jazz Quartet: Bluesology: The Atlantic Years 1956-1988

by Chris May
July 13, 2009

Asked to name the most insurrectionary artists associated with the Atlantic label, most jazz fans would probably think first of saxophonists John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Pianist John Lewis' Modern Jazz Quartet would come much further down the list. Yet in its own, more velvet manner, the MJQ was as radical as Coltrane and Coleman. When the group came to prominence in the mid-1950s, its elegant chamber music, a blend of the blues and European baroque, subverted many of the ...

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Asa & Les Nubians Live at Central Park Summerstage

by Ernest Barteldes
July 13, 2009

Asa + Les Nubians Central Park Summerstage New York July 05, 2009

One of the first proper summer days in the Northeast greeted fans at New York's Central Park as Nigerian-born Asa (pronounced A-sha) kicked off her set at her Summmerstage debut last July 5th.

Backed by a small three-piece band (guitar, bass, drums and a backing vocalist), Asa went through several tunes from her recently released CD Naïve (Mercer ...

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Steve Kuhn Trio with Joe Lovano: Mostly Coltrane

by Dan McClenaghan
July 13, 2009

The sound of John Coltrane (1926-1967) was a mix of spiritual tranquility and ecstatic fury, sheets-of-sound full force gales and transcendent, tender, Zen-like ruminations from a man intent on communing with God through his music--all of which makes an attempt at communing with Coltrane a nervy quest.Enter pianist Steve Kuhn.In 1960, at 21 years of age, Kuhn was employed by Coltrane for an eight week stint of live shows at New York's The Jazz Gallery, playing ...