Home » Jazz Articles » Adam Birnbaum
Jazz Articles about Adam Birnbaum
Adam Birnbaum: Preludes
by Maurizio Zerbo
Il genio di Johann Sebastian Bach ha sempre attratto l'estro dei jazzisti sin dall'era dello swing. Questa sfida è stata raccolta negli ultimi decenni, tra gli altri, da Uri Caine, Brad Mehldau, ed oggi con buoni risultati anche dal pianista statunitense Adam Birnbaum. Il pregio di Preludes consiste nell'aver esteso la tecnica compositiva del mondo barocco con i colori dell'armonia jazzistica. Swing, virtuosismo non compiaciuto, e squisito senso melodico sono al servizio di una reinterpretazione affettuosa e riflessiva ...
Continue ReadingRobert Edwards: Up Swing
by Edward Blanco
Veteran trombonist, educator and bandleader Robert Edwards is a fixture of New York City jazz scene, performing in many of the jazz venues in the city and, as of this writing, becoming the newest member of the famed Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Edwards fronts a marvelous quintet that has been performing regularly at Smalls Jazz Club for many years now. Up Swing celebrates the post-bop sounds the group is known for and covers many of the ensemble's “greatest hits from over ...
Continue ReadingDarcy James Argue's Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension
by Angelo Leonardi
Precursore nel 2009 (con l'innovativo Infernal Machines) del nuovo rinascimento orchestrale nel jazz, Darcy James Argue approda all'etichetta Nonesuch e pubblica il nuovo album in studio: un doppio CD realizzato con i consueti partner della Secret Society più l'aggiunta della cantante Cecile McLorin Salvant e della violinista Sara Caswell. A differenza degli ultimi due dischi, Dynamic Maximum Tension non è un'opera multimediale ma conserva la spinta visionaria animata dalla costante riflessione socio-politica. Spinta che si traduce in ...
Continue ReadingDarcy James Argue's Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension
by Katchie Cartwright
Darcy James Argue's superb double-album Nonesuch debut offers compositions written throughout his career. He turns to twentieth-century thinkers for “ideas that can help us in the present, that we can reexamine and reconfigure for our own purposes." These include futurist designer Buckminster Fuller, cryptanalyst-computer scientist Alan Turing, composer-arranger Bob Brookmeyer, actress-screenwriter Mae West, trumpeter-mentor Laurie Frink, and musician-beyond-category Duke Ellington, among others. Like West, Argue seems to control his own path. He may not yet be the tycoon she was, ...
Continue ReadingAndy Farber and His Orchestra: Early Blue Evening
by Jack Bowers
Saxophonist Andy Farber's New York-based orchestra came together and cut its teeth as the onstage band for three hundred performances of After Midnight, a Broadway revue that paid tribute to Jazz Age nightclub luminaries from Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie to Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. As one might presume from the orchestra's provenance, echoes of Ellington and Basie can readily be discerned on its first recording since After Midnight closed in 2014--but Farber, who wrote ...
Continue ReadingJihye Lee: Daring Mind
by Jack Bowers
Korean-born composer Jihye Lee is a musician who knows her own mind, whether it be relentless, unshakable, revived, dissatisfied or Daring, as on her second recording for Motema Records. In 2018, Lee earned the prestigious BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize for “Unshakable Mind," one of nine diverse themes presented here. Another, “I Dare You," is loosely based on Wayne Shorter's response when asked, “What is jazz?" It is a question Lee must also address, as her music is not only ...
Continue ReadingJihye Lee: Daring Mind
by Angelo Leonardi
Solo un talento eccezionale come Jihye Lee poteva ottenere risultati così brillanti e personali nel campo dell'orchestrazione jazz partendo quasi da zero. Nata a Seoul ed emigrata negli Stati Uniti da adolescente, quando s'iscrisse al Berklee College conosceva pochissimo il linguaggio musicale afro-americano e per niente la sua dimensione orchestrale. Dopo un decennio, studi di perfezionamento alla Manhattan School of Music col grande Jim McNeely (a cui va riconosciuto parte del merito) e un primo eccellente debutto (April, 2017), la ...
Continue Reading
