Jazz Articles about Ari Hoenig

Andrew Moorhead: Interleaved

by Dan McClenaghan
March 29, 2023

A 47-foot fall that resulted in multiple injuries influenced the music-making of pianist Andrew Moorhead. So do mathematics and computer science, on his debut recording Interleaved. “An Interleaved digital signal is a single woven from multiple threads." This is what Moorhead tells us in his liner notes. The threads of Moorhead's life that come together to create his CD offering are the consequences of that fall, a love of music and his interest in mathematics. This ...

Ben Markley Big Band: Ari's Funhouse

by Jack Bowers
May 15, 2022

Ari's Funhouse, recorded in July 2021, sprang from a chance encounter at a Texas jazz festival in 2019 between New York-based drummer & composer Ari Hoenig and Denver-based pianist & arranger Ben Markley. After performing with Hoenig in a small group, Markley asked if he might score some of Hoenig's songs for a big band. Hoenig readily agreed, and after a lengthy Covid-induced pause, he and Markley's band finally met face-to-face in Denver to record the album. Two things are ...

Benjamin Boone: The Poets Are Gathering

by Paul Rauch
December 31, 2020

Saxophonist Benjamin Boone continues his ambitious foray into jazz and poetry, this time recruiting an impressive cadre of poets for his aptly entitled release, The Poets are Gathering (Origin, 2020). The union of poetry and jazz has never been so powerfly presented, reflecting the past year of the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement, the universal role of the poet, and the power of art and voice to raise awareness and inspire change. The album employs the likes of US Poet ...

Ari Hoenig: The Pauper And The Magician

by Ian Patterson
January 17, 2017

Concept albums have largely been the domain of progressive rock bands, whilst jazzers tend to prefer the term 'suite' to describe thematically linked pieces of music. Ari Hoenig's The Pauper and the Magician is arguably more the former than the latter, as these six compositions are inspired by a fable-like tale of Hoenig's design, without overt musical continuity. But for the liner notes describing the narrative as it unfolds--an evil magician entices a panhandling pauper to enter his wicked realm--it ...

Ari Hoenig: Lines of Oppression

by John Kelman
August 5, 2011

When Bill Evans began building trios that represented a collaboration of equals rather than soloist accompanied by rhythm section, it's unlikely the late pianist could have envisioned the way Jean-Michel Pilc, bassist François Moutin and drummer Ari Hoenig wowed fans at a 2011 Ottawa International Jazz Festival performance. Bringing new meaning to the phrase “egalitarian," each and every member was clearly capable of pushing the music in a new direction, so keenly attuned were they to each other. Hoenig, in ...

Ari Hoenig Quartet: Niu's Jazz & Blues Bar, Bangkok

by Ian Patterson
November 20, 2009

Ari Hoenig Quartet Niu's Jazz & Blues Bar Silom, Bangkok, Thailand November 5, 2009

There is no other drummer quite like New Yorker Ari Hoenig. Watching him play is like marveling at a cross between Animal, the wild drummer of Muppets fame, and Max Roach. His approach to drumming is intense above all, ferocious even at times, and yet his harmonic manipulation of his kit is subtlety itself. The crowd at Niu's Jazz ...

Ari Hoenig: Bert's Playground

by Elliott Simon
March 14, 2009

The varied contexts in which drummers play make their own sessions as leaders either spottily uneven or dynamically diverse. For Bert's Playground, drummer Ari Hoenig has gathered a troop of six musicians that includes two bassists, guitarists and saxophonists that he mixes and matches to illuminate the fun to be had. After receiving a gentle push from Hoenig and bassist Matt Penman, guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and tenor saxophonist Chris Potter swing hard on Trane's “Moment's Notice." Guitarist ...