Jazz Articles about Bill O'Connell

About Bill O'Connell

Album Review

Andrea Brachfeld is a critically acclaimed flutist, composer and educator. She has won multiple awards, including a grant from Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and was once recognized as the best jazz flutist by Hot House magazine. Evolution features Brachfeld's longtime collaborators Bill O'Connell (piano), Harvie S (bass) and Jason Tiemann (drums). While Brachfeld's previous album, Brazilian Whispers (Origin Records, 2020), focused solely on a Brazilian music sound palette, in Evolution she brings listeners ...

Album Review

Bill O'Connell: A Change Is Gonna Come

Read "A Change Is Gonna Come" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
February 28, 2022

Pianist Bill O'Connell, who has been at the top of his game for more than four decades with no signs of slowing down, says each of his albums is a snapshot of how he is feeling at a particular time in his life. A Change Is Gonna Come expresses O'Connell's frame of mind after enduring more than two years of the Coronavirus pandemic. By and large, the mood is optimistic, underscoring his belief that the worst of the pandemic could ...

Album Review

Santi Debriano: Flash of the Spirit

Read "Flash of the Spirit" reviewed by Paul Rauch

by Paul Rauch
January 15, 2021

Bassist/composer Santi Debriano has been prominently on the scene since the late seventies, when he worked for several years with saxophonist Archie Shepp. Born in Panama, and raised in Brooklyn from a very young age, his life was integrated with the many crosscurrents of jazz music in the Americas. He worked prominently with Sam Rivers in Paris for a few years, before heading back to New York to perform with the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Fortune, Larry Coryell, Freddie ...

Album Review

Conrad Herwig: The Latin Side of Horace Silver

Read "The Latin Side of Horace Silver" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 16, 2020

New York-based trombonist Conrad Herwig began exploring the “Latin side" of various jazz musicians in 1996, with The Latin Side of John Coltrane, which earned him the first of four Latin Grammy Award nominations. Since then, Herwig has done the same for Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson and, now, pianist Horace Silver. The formula is trim and solid; choose several of an artist's more notable compositions and recast them in a rhythmic Latin framework. For The Latin ...

Album Review

Robby Ameen: Diluvio

by Jack Bowers
May 21, 2020

It's a given that wherever Grammy-winning drummer Robby Ameen goes, irrepressible rhythm is sure to follow. Diluvio, Ameen's third album as leader of his own ensemble, is clearly no exception to the rule. Ameen's half-dozen compositions are intrepid and lively, and even Gerry Mulligan's “Line for Lyons" and John Coltrane's “Impressions," which seal the album, are given bright rhythmic makeovers in keeping with the leader's metrical frame of mind. To lend color and variety, Ameen employs a ...

Album Review

Robby Ameen: Diluvio

by Dan Bilawsky
May 16, 2020

Perhaps it's a flood of rhythm that the title and cover art refer to on this third leader outing from drumming dynamo Robby Ameen. A heavy hitter in Afro-Cuban circles for decades, Ameen's frangible linear Latin funk workouts, intricate rhythmic roadmapping, song-serving chops and good taste have earned him an overwhelmingly positive reputation. Everybody from musical polymath Ruben Blades to flutist Dave Valentin and pianist Eddie Palmieri to trombonist Conrad Herwig has called on Ameen multiple times over the years, ...

Album Review

Andrea Brachfeld: Brazilian Whispers

Read "Brazilian Whispers" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 23, 2020

While Brazilian Whispers marks Andrea Brachfeld's first thorough exploration of the titular stream of sound, you'd never know it from the results. Teaming up with Bill O'Connell, her longtime pianist and sounding board, the veteran flutist, who's typically engaged in Afro-Cuban affairs or straight ahead suggestions, sounds like she's been playing this music all her life. Rather than spread focus across a massive realm of Brazilian territory, Brachfeld homes in on the music of one of the ...