Jazz Articles about Allan Chase

About Allan Chase

Album Review

Jason Robinson: Blue Salience: For Yusef Lateef

Read "Blue Salience: For Yusef Lateef" reviewed by Keith Flint

by Keith Flint
October 18, 2026

From a single note a song takes form. From a single seed a tree grows. Consider Yusef Lateef's own words from “Where Are The Goodies?" Spheres: Stories by Yusef Lateef (Fana Publishing, 1976), “To find out in a hurry whether the roots are where the rich dirt is, look up at the tree and see if the branches are soulful." His writing was as evocative of spirituality and human communication as it was given to compositional foundations and creative ideation. ...

Album Review

New England Jazz Collaborative: Tributaries

Read "Tributaries" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 25, 2026

Tributaries is the debut recording by the seventeen-member New England Jazz Collaborative whose origin and purpose are summed up as follows: “an artist-led non-profit collective dedicated to commissioning, presenting and documenting new music and expanding the audience for what remains a thrilling and vital musical form." The album consists of half a dozen fresh compositions by a quartet of talented composers and arrangers: NEJC founder Jeremy Cohen, Matan Rubinstein, Darryl Harper and Sam Spear, with the ensemble ably ...

Album Review

Fernando Huergo: Relentless

Read "Relentless" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 26, 2024

Argentine-born bassist and composer Fernando Huergo's heavy-duty Massachusetts-based big band delivers the goods on Relentless, a taut and vibrant review of oppression, discrimination, environmental challenges and other social issues, interwoven with Huergo's lively tribute to the saxophonist Ornette Coleman and a charismatic and thought-provoking survey ("La Vida Sigue") on life after the Covid-19 pandemic, with all compositions and arrangements by the leader. This is well-designed, no-holds-barred big-band jazz, delivered with verve and enthusiasm by eighteen well-prepared musicians ...

Album Review

Bruno Raberg Tentet: Evolver

Read "Evolver" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 20, 2024

Bassist Bruno Raberg released a nonet recording, Chrysalis (Orbis Music), in 2002--review here. That was his only foray into recording with a large-ish ensemble. Since Chrysalis he has primarily recorded in small ensembles. Evolver brings him back to the “almost a big band" format in more than twenty years. The disc features a first-rate tentet, with a pair of guest artist contributions which expand the voicings. As the opener “Peripeteia" spins, the first impression is Gil Evans, or ...

Album Review

Aardvark Jazz Orchestra: Faces Of Souls

Read "Faces Of Souls" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
December 30, 2020

Si avvicina al cinquantesimo anno di attività l'Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, fondata nel 1973 da Mark Harvey e ancora diretta dall'inossidabile trombettista, compositore e bandleader di Boston. In questo nuovo disco--il decimo pubblicato con la Leo Records e registrato live in varie occasioni--ritroviamo il consueto eclettismo della formazione, capace di passare da quadri in libera improvvisazione a concitazioni rock anche in uno stesso brano. Per la verità stavolta i contrasti sono più smussati e tendono a prevalere compostezza ...

Album Review

Steve Lantner Quartet: Given - Live In Munster

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 11, 2009

L'atmosfera riflessiva, destrutturata, irreale e sospesa di piano e sax, all'inizio del primo brano, è la perfetta introduzione a un percorso che si sviluppa attraverso una musica atonale e lungo una traiettoria di perfetta libertà organizzata. Il disco, pur mantenendo sempre una dimensione fortemente astratta, alterna momenti di forte atonalità, ma sempre in qualche modo eterei e vaporosi, ad altri fortemente concreti in cui si lambisce il confine tra formale e informale. Uno sviluppo che sembra procedere con naturalezza anche ...