Jazz Articles about Alexandra Grimal

About Alexandra Grimal

Album Review

Pierre-Antoine Savoyat: Thousand Shades of a Clown

Read "Thousand Shades of a Clown" reviewed by Ieva Pakalniškytė

by Ieva Pakalniškytė
April 13, 2026

On his 2026 album release, Thousand Shades of a Clown (Challenges Record, 2026), Brussels-based trumpeter and composer Pierre-Antoine Savoyat places the emphasis on proportion, timbre, and space, balancing a quiet surface with an underlying intensity. Leading his quartet Le Monde Merveilleux de Pepito, Savoyat shapes a sound that is understated yet deliberate, allowing the music to unfold without pushing toward obvious peaks. Rather than demanding attention, it draws the ear in gradually, revealing through detail and interaction. From the outset, ...

Album Review

Yaron Herman: Radio Paradise

Read "Radio Paradise" reviewed by Anastasia Bogomolets

by Anastasia Bogomolets
April 12, 2025

"When I started working on this album, the first thing that came to my mind was melody. I have been writing a lot over the last few years, mostly in my notebooks, for myself. On the road or at home, anything from long lines to short fragments. With time, (and hard work) these “motifs" started to take shape and turn into 'songs,'" Yaron Herman shares about his backstage process. Even though there are no human vocals on the ...

Album Review

Alexandra Grimal: Andromeda

Read "Andromeda" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff

by AAJ Italy Staff
October 25, 2012

Andromeda è disco notturno, e non poteva essere diversamente visto che a costellazioni e ad immagini di esplorazioni celesti fa riferimento e prende spunto. Notturno per il senso di mistero che pervade la musica, per il suo evocare immagini attraverso una narrazione allusiva piuttosto che descrittiva, per lo stupore che suscita nei confronti dell'infinito e del non conosciuto. Notturno per i toni scuri, spesso neri come la pece che escono dai registri gravi degli strumenti, per le scie luminose che ...

Album Review

Alexandra Grimal: Andromeda

Read "Andromeda" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 9, 2012

French saxophonist Alexandra Grimal composed this symphony of minimalist chamber music while watching a starry night at the MacDowell Colony, the United States' oldest arts enclave. For this ambitious composition, she enlists guitarist Todd Neufeld, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, the trio that recorded Sorey's majestic Koan (482 Music, 2009) three years ago. Similar to Koan, Grimal's Andromeda resists categorization. It is an intimate exploration of the relation between time, sound and space that tends ...

Album Review

Júlio Resende Quarteto: Da alma

by AAJ Italy Staff
March 11, 2008

Arriva dal Portogallo questo giovane quartetto del pianista Júlio Resende, qui al suo primo album da leader. Come molti musicisti della sua generazione, Resende ha una formazione classica, che ha poi arricchito con il jazz quando si è accorto che l'improvvisazione gli dava maggiori gratificazioni. Degli anni classici rimane qualche eco (l'incipit della terza traccia, la delicatezza della quarta), ma l'ambientazione generale dell'album è più radicata nella tradizione jazzistica. In un linguaggio che trae origine dal bop e che viene ...