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Jazz Articles about Andrea Keller
Sam Anning: Earthen
by Alberto Bazzurro
Una musica largamente composta, molto intenzionale, come amiamo dire in questi casi, forse qua e là persino troppo “abbottonata," nel senso di priva delle necessarie (o quanto meno opportune, auspicabili) aperture, improvvisative ma forse prima ancora emotive, e in ogni caso di sicuro valore e interesse, è quanto ci arriva da questo nuovo lavoro del contrabbassista australiano Sam Anning, già firmatario di una dozzina di album a suo nome. Vi aleggia un descrittivismo molto educato, levigato, senza ...
Continue ReadingSam Anning: Earthen
by Jerome Wilson
Sam Anning spent three years as bassist for Archie Roach, an Indigenous Australian singer-songwriter who championed the rights of that country's Aboriginal people. Roach passed away in 2022 and this album is Anning's tribute to him, a set of original works that carry forth the inner strength and understated force of Roach's music. Anning's compositions are unhurried and contemplative. They resemble classic ECM sounds but with a warmer, more intimate vibe. Throughout the album Andrea Keller's piano leads ...
Continue ReadingVanessa Perica: The Eye is the First Circle
by Angelo Leonardi
Il secondo album della compositrice e bandleader australiana Vanessa Perica, conferma le aspettative suscitate dall'impressionante debutto del 2020 Love Is a Temporary Madness che le ha portato numerosi riconoscimenti in patria e all'estero, con recensioni superlative della massime riviste specializzate. Entro le coordinate espressive del modern mainstream orchestrale, Vanessa mostra una scrittura avvincente, che alterna momenti ritmicamente trascinanti a sequenze d'ampio respiro, timbricamente ricercate. Entro smaglianti orchestrazioni ricche di trascinanti riff, lunghi pedali e scontri di sezioni, i ...
Continue ReadingAndrea Keller: Flicker & Polar Bird
by John Fenton
Andrea Keller's recorded output is bold, original and engaging; this recent album is no exception. Flicker & Polar Bird is a double album and her twenty-third release as a leader. The album is the result of her time as the Coombs Creative Arts Fellow in 2022 and also features various commissions undertaken between 2010 and 2022. Keller is one of Australia's finest pianists, composers and arrangers, winning numerous prestigious awards and widespread recognition. She is an active educator in many ...
Continue ReadingVanessa Perica Orchestra: The Eye is the First Circle
by Barry O'Sullivan
The music on The Eye is the First Circle is undeniably outstandingly composed and arranged by Vanessa Perica. Her second outing--following Love is A Temporary Madness (Self released, 2020)--with another supersonic ensemble, it was superbly recorded at the Sing Sing East Studios in Melbourne, showcasing numerous flawlessly performed solos by some of Australia's best improvising musicians. The bandleader, composer and arranger has created explosively expressionistic charts which would bring out the best in any orchestra. Perica utilises the chosen voices ...
Continue ReadingVanessa Perica Orchestra: The Eye is the First Circle
by Jack Bowers
In a review of Love Is a Temporary Madness, the debut recording by Australian composer/arranger Vanessa Perica, the observation was made that “Perica's impact in the realm of big-band jazz should be anything but temporary." Perica's second album, The Eye Is the First Circle, has added an exclamation point to that assertion. Again, each of the album's seven numbers was written and arranged by Perica. And again, she has shown that she deserves to be in the ...
Continue ReadingBarry Deister: Hemispheres
by Jack Bowers
Tenor saxophonist Barry Deister labels his sextet on Hemispheres a Collective, and for good reason--two of the musicians on Deister's fourth album are from the U.S., the others from Melbourne, Australia. Although the way they managed to work that magic isn't spelled out in the album's notes, the group performs seamlessly on seven of Deister's original compositions, which would seem to indicate that everyone was in the same studio in Preston, Australia, when the session was recorded in February 2023. ...
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