Jazz Articles about Amos Gillespie

About Amos Gillespie

Album Review

Amos Gillespie: Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet

Read "Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
March 12, 2022

The premise of this interesting recording may well be summarized in the old Roman proverb, “Make haste, but slowly." Amos Gillespie is a Chicago-based composer and instrumentalist who has composed a nine-part jazz suite for a septet. In his own words, Unstructured Time is “about capturing childhood focus, creativity and peace through unstructured time." The title is a bit deceptive. While there may be a variety of meters that frame the improvised solos, the recording is in no way formless. ...

Album Review

Amos Gillespie: Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet

Read "Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 23, 2021

Chicago-based composer/educator/alto saxophonist Amos Gillespie's CD, Unstructured Time, employs a variety of time signatures but is anything but unstructured--in fact, the opposite may reasonably be opined, as taut structure is clearly front and center on the album's four instrumental and five vocal numbers. In other words, “unstructured" in Gillespie's lexicon bears absolutely no resemblance to “free" jazz but refers instead to the struggle to find structure and balance in an environment wherein one is constantly bombarded with negative messages and ...