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Jazz Articles about Ben Williams

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Liner Notes

Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors: The Meeting

Read "Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors: The Meeting" reviewed by Howard Mandel


How far must a reeds virtuoso from Bashkiria--a town in the Ural Mountains, southeast of Moscow towards Mongolia--and a pianist-composer-educator from southern Illinois, now living in Philadelphia, have to go to get together? Not very, based on the music Oleg Kireyev and Keith Javors arrive at on The Meeting. Simply to a shared sense of joy in swinging rhythms, warm, rich harmonies and singable songs. In their second co-led album Kireyev and Javors offer more delightful proof that ...

Album Review

Bouvier: Blachant

Read "Blachant" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Dai consigli d'amministrazione alla sala d'incisione. L'antropologa e urban designer Jackie “Bouvier" Copeland è stata riconosciuta di recente tra i massimi leader filantropici del mondo ed è impegnata in varie iniziative internazionali di sostegno umanitario. Ha fondato il programma “Black Philanthropy Month," la rete di filantropia femminile “Reunity" ed è dirigente di “The Women Invested to Save Earth Fund." Questo debutto discografico, prodotto dal bassista Ben Williams, s'inscrive in quest'attività, presentandosi come una profonda riflessione (anche spirituale) sui ...

14
Album Review

Dewa Budjana: Naurora

Read "Naurora" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Balinese guitarist Dewa Budjana's seventh album on Moonjune Records, Naurora, reveals--for those who have not heard him--a musician of seemingly unlimited talent and an artist in possession of an expansive vision. He has been called a “progressive fusion maestro" and, if he has to be labeled, that description feels right. Leading off with this disc's eleven-minute title tune, Budjana--who composed, arranged and produced the music here--lays down huge, rich soundscapes in the company of a bunch of forward-looking allstars, including ...

Album Review

Alicia Olatuja: Intuition: Songs From The Minds Of Women

Read "Intuition: Songs From The Minds Of Women" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


È un tributo alla creatività delle donne in generale e delle cantautrici in particolare, questo di Alicia Olatuja, che interpreta composizioni di Tracy Chapman, Joni Mitchell, Violeta Parra, Sade Adu, Kate Bush e altre. Alicia ne aggiunge di proprie e partecipa come arrangiatrice in un progetto fortemente sentito e condiviso col produttore Kamau Kenyatta, noto per il suo ruolo nel successo di Gregory Porter, e con Ulysses Owens Jr. Alicia Olatuja è una versatile mezzosoprano, maturata ...

17
Album Review

Jazzmeia Horn: Love & Liberation

Read "Love & Liberation" reviewed by Ian Patterson


It's a big step for any singer, the move from interpreter of jazz standards to songwriter. And when you've been Grammy-nominated for a debut album of covers, as Jazzmeia Horn was with A Social Call (Prestige, 2017), the temptation must be to carry on in the same vein. Horn, however, clearly has greater ambition, as the eight originals on her follow-up attest. Not that she's thrown the baby out with the bathwater, for swing, blues, bebop, gospel and thrilling vocal ...

4
Live Review

Ben Williams at Hamilton Live

Read "Ben Williams at Hamilton Live" reviewed by Wendy Ross


Ben Williams Hamilton Live Ben Williams Birthday BashWashington D.C. December 27, 2018 Hamilton Live is a trendy performance venue located below The Hamilton restaurant in Washington, DC, mere blocks from the White House. It was the holiday season between Christmas and the New Year, an appropriately festive time for a birthday party. The man of the hour, bassist Ben Williams, was throwing his annual birthday bash and it was so intimate ...

13
Album Review

Oleg Kireyev & Keith Javors: The Meeting

Read "The Meeting" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Performing together since 2007, Russian saxophonist Oleg Kireyev and Philadelphia-based pianist Keith Javors formed a solid quartet they eventually led to the studio for their debut album Rhyme & Reason (Inarhyme Records, 2010). The Meeting is their follow up recording with a program of four originals and three re-imagined tunes from The Great American Songbook delivered in a tasteful post-bop style. Interestingly enough, it was Kireyev who discovered Javors while surfing the internet and cemented their friendship while ...


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