Jazz Articles about Ben Allison

Ted Nash: Still Evolved

by Jim Santella
December 3, 2003

Ted Nash's work with Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Don Ellis, the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, the Herbie Nichols Project and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra has earned the saxophonist a reputation for living in the mainstream. At 43, he’s in a position to continue shaping the landscape of straight-ahead jazz through his innovative ideas.

The title of Still Evolved refers to the growth we’ve witnessed in the modern mainstream during the jazz resurgence of the ...

Ted Nash: Still Evolved

by C. Michael Bailey
October 9, 2003

Still Evolved can be heard as an accidental suite, a collection of compositions that hang together independent of design. Ted Nash is most recently holding down a tenor chair in the Kennedy Center Jazz Orchestra. Here he turns his attention to small group performance and composition... with a hurricane-like creative force. Mr. Nash has composed eight pieces for the standard trumpet-tenor quintet. And the music is a fresh as strawberries bursting on the roof of your mouth.

Besides ...

Ted Nash: Still Evolved

by Elliott Simon
October 7, 2003

Before he was 20, saxophonist Ted Nash had recorded his first record and had played with musicians as diverse as Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones and Don Cherry. Now, more than 20 years later, he is at home in both the up- and downtown worlds of NYC jazz as a part of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Jazz Composer’s Collective. With such connections, Nash is able to assemble the decidedly adventurous rhythm section of bassist Ben Allison, drummer Matt ...

Ted Nash: Still Evolved

by Jack Bowers
September 25, 2003

While there's nothing that's less than respectable on Still Evolved, tenor saxophonist Ted Nash's third album as leader and first on Palmetto Records, I kept waiting for the session to catch fire. Despite the presence of two of Nash's well-known colleagues from the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, trumpeters Wynton Marsalis and Marcus Printup, and a blue-chip rhythm section, it seldom does, even though, taken as a whole, the music is engaging and there are occasional intervals of inspired blowing.

Perhaps ...

Ted Nash: Still Evolved

by Riel Lazarus
June 25, 2003

Multi-reedist Ted Nash is a man of many masks. Some days he poses as a featured soloist in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (LCJO) and others he spends as a scribe-in-residence for the Jazz Composers Collective (JCC). At times he wields a robust, full-bodied tenor, while at others he brandishes a fluttering clarinet. Whatever the case, this is one busy cat - and if his recent Palmetto debut is any indication, Nash should brace himself for even busier days ahead. ...

Different Generations, Same Realizations

by Ben Allison
March 14, 2003

In the summer of 1992, I was reading a biography about Alban Berg that described his and Arnold Schoenberg's frustration over the lack of adequate performance opportunities for their music and the gap that seemed to exist between them and the public. This situation inspired Schoenberg to look for alternatives to the usual channels that composers were forced to use to get their music heard. He and his colleagues decided to produce their own concerts, free from the ...

Ben Allison: Peace Pipe

by C. Michael Bailey
October 2, 2002

This is a novelty jazz recording. That does not make it a bad recording. It simply makes it a marketing and listening challenge for the more conservative jazz listener. It is a tough sell to introduce obscure instruments into the mainstream of jazz much less those foreign to anglophilic ears. The kora is an established African stringed instrument that enjoys a widespread popularity in Africa and has been used in crossover to Western popular music. When played, the sound recalls ...