Jazz Articles about Bennie Maupin

Bennie Maupin: Penumbra

by Matthew Miller
May 6, 2007

One of the true challenges faced by the creative artist is the need to evolve over the course of a career, to respect the past while staring unflinchingly toward the future. This is especially true of improvising musicians, who do this while inextricably in the moment, creating structure from chaos, revealing the future in the blinding light of the present. Multi-instrumentalist Bennie Maupin takes on this challenge with Penumbra, a release that marks him as one of the true visionaries ...

Bennie Maupin

by Andrey Henkin
March 11, 2007

In AllAboutJazz-New York's Best of 2006 spread, three of the four Best Album lists included Bennie Maupin's Penumbra. The disc was his first since 1998's Driving While Black (Intuition), an album few in the jazz world really knew. A listener would have to go back to the '70s when Maupin released a couple of funk albums for Mercury or perhaps even earlier to his 1974 ECM debut The Jewel in the Lotus to find Maupin the leader, the composer, given ...

The Bennie Maupin Ensemble: Penumbra

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 26, 2006

Sassofonista chiave nella svolta elettrica di Miles Davis prima (Bitches Brew) e di Herbie Hancock poi (Mwhandishi Band e Headhunters) Bennie Maupin non ha mai ricevuto nella ormai lunga carriera i riconoscimenti che la sua statura di multistrumentista e compositore avrebbe meritato. Con questo Penumbra, Maupin conferma una raggiunta classicità nel ruolo di outsider nel panorama jazzistico internazionale, organizzando un ensemble assolutamente acustico nel quale si cimenta felicemente con cinque strumenti e mette in mostra le sue ottime qualità di ...

Bennie Maupin: Miles Beyond

by Rex Butters
September 12, 2006

For forty years, Bennie Maupin has played with the giants of jazz, starting with Roy Haynes, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, and Marion Brown. A call from Miles Davis put Maupin in the line up that recorded his most earth shaking albums including Bitches Brew (Columbia/Legacy, 1969), Big Fun (Columbia/Legacy, 1974) and On the Corner (Columbia/Legacy, 1972). His instantly recognizable bass clarinet prowled the lower clef like a barracuda. After working with several Herbie Hancock projects, including ...

Various Artists: Baritone Guitars & Bass Clarinets

by Mark F. Turner
June 8, 2006

The Bennie Maupin Ensemble Penumbra Cryptogramophone 2006

Bennie Maupin has been standing in the shadows, enhancing the music of such high-profilers as Miles Davis, Andrew Hill and Herbie Hancock, during much of his career. Not before time, he steps up to the mic with Penumbra, leading a trio-plus-percussion ensemble and himself switching between reeds and flute. His supple and commanding playing reflects his deep musical knowledge, and his band, with whom he's been touring ...

The Bennie Maupin Ensemble: Penumbra

by Jerry D'Souza
May 22, 2006

For whatever it's worth, Bennie Maupin will continue to be associated with Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, and to an extent with Herbie Hancock and his fusion phase. But times and circumstances have changed, and it is good to see Maupin get into an acoustic setting that draws attention to his playing and his music. It is telling that the title of the first tune refers to a love for novelty in the present day.

Maupin plays five instruments ...

The Bennie Maupin Ensemble: Penumbra

by John Kelman
May 6, 2006

Bennie Maupin, whose bass clarinet work helped define Miles Davis' classic Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969), was an equally key contributor to Herbie Hancock's 1970s Mwandishi and Headhunters groups. In light of this, it's hard to believe that he has released only six albums as a leader during his lengthy career. One bona fide classic, The Jewel in the Lotus (ECM, 1974), sadly awaits issue on CD, and another disc comes very close: Driving While Black (Intuition, 1997).

But while both ...