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Monder-Malaby-Rainey and Mario Rom's Interzone
by Maurice Hogue
There are more 2020 favourites scattered throughout this playlist (my choices at the One Man's Jazz website), but some excellent new trio and duo releases are highlights. Ben Monder, Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey gathered at one of Monder's residency-sessions at the 55 Bar and the three-part album is split over this show and the next two. The explosive Austrian trio Interzone, led by trumpeter Mario Rom, celebrate their tenth year as a group with Eternal Fiction, while Finnish saxophonist ...
Continue ReadingBenjamin Boone: The Poets Are Gathering
by Paul Rauch
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 ...
Continue ReadingBen Monder, Sandy Evans, Andrea Keller, Ralph Alessi & Rich Halley
by Maurice Hogue
Monash University in Melbourne, Australia is the home of the Sir Zelman Cowen School Of Music. It's an excellent program that believes in challenging the students. One of the ways it does that is to bring in internationally recognized artists to perform and work directly with the students. This episode presents some of those Monash sessions. Guitarist Ben Monder and trumpeter Ralph Alessi traveled from the USA while Sydney's acclaimed saxophonist Sandy Evans joined her friend, the much praised pianist ...
Continue ReadingMaria Schneider Orchestra: Data Lords
by Angelo Leonardi
C'è molto da dire sul nuovo album di Maria Schneider ma la prima e più importante considerazione riguarda la musica: sorprendente per ricchezza e novità di soluzioni, tensione narrativa e sintesi tra ricerca e tradizione. È uno dei suoi dischi più avvincenti e innovativi. L'incubazione del progetto è durata alcuni anni (il precedente The Thompson Fields è del 2015) e si lega alla presa di coscienza della bandleader sui pericoli connessi alla raccolta dei dati personali dalle società dell'universo digitale. ...
Continue ReadingMaria Schneider: Data Lords
by Pat Youngspiel
Well someone doesn't seem too happy with the digital world. But that's nothing new for Maria Schneider. The Grammy-award winning composer and bandleader has been an outspoken critic of copyright abuses in the digital and streaming world of music for the biggest part of the last decade. On her newest effort, she sets her justified quarrels with the industry to music by juxtaposing the cold world of ones and zeroes, comprised on the first CD titled “The Digital World," in ...
Continue ReadingJulian Shore: Where We Started
by Troy Dostert
A pianist of uncommon sensitivity and graceful temperament, Julian Shore crafts music with atmosphere and feeling, aiming for emotional depth rather than settling for typical jazz devices. On Where We Started, his third release, he offers eight well-honed tracks which are both evocative and nuanced; while they might not win over the uninitiated in a crowded club, they offer plenty of introspective delights to listeners prepared to settle in with the music. Joined by a fine ensemble, Shore ...
Continue ReadingMaria Schneider Orchestra: Data Lords
by Jerome Wilson
Composer Maria Schneider has long been writing and speaking about the dangers of the omnipresent digital universe, intellectual property theft, gathering and manipulation of personal data by big tech companies, the unchecked proliferation of false and misleading material, and so on. Those concerns form the basis of her latest musical project, Data Lords, a 2 CD set examining the conflicting realities of the digital and real worlds. The two CDs are labeled “The Digital World" and “Our Natural ...
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