Jazz Articles about Billy Mintz
Billy Mintz: Ugly Beautiful
by David A. Orthmann
Consisting of seventeen tracks spanning over two hours of playing time, Ugly Beautiful is a large, sprawling, wise, unflinchingly honest, powerful work of art. Billy Mintz's third recording as a leader--all of which were made in the most recent decade of a fifty-year plus career--stubbornly refuses to conform to stylistic boundaries and gleefully defies expectations of any kind. The record demands to be taken on its own terms. Trying to pin labels or anticipate the course of almost any track ...
read moreBilly Mintz: Ugly Beautiful
by Dan McClenaghan
Drummer/composer Billy Mintz has a long career of enhancing the music of others with his percussive artistry, everyone from saxophonist Lee Konitz to pianist Hal Galper, to clarinet master Perry Robinson. His own discography as a leader is small, with frequent revisitations of a handful of original compositions that are as distinctive and as worthy of the multiple version approach as the music of Thelonious Monk. He writes small masterpieces and turns his ensembles loose on them, resulting in a ...
read moreBilly Mintz: The 2 Bass Band...Live
by Glenn Astarita
Venerable first-call session artist and bandleader, Billy Mintz (Alan Broadbent Trio, Eddie Daniels Quartet) has logged years of productive time within the East and West Coast USA jazz communities. Calling New York home since 2001, he formed the 2 Bass Band, which is a unit that performs at many of the well-known Manhattan venues, but surprisingly, has never recorded an album until now. And it's probably fitting that the large ensemble--anchored by bassists Masa Kamaguchi and Cameron Brown --is captured ...
read moreBilly Mintz: Mintz Quartet
by Hrayr Attarian
What is remarkable about drummer's Billy Mintz's debut recording Mintz Quartet is his masterful versatility on his instrument. That is no surprise as Mintz, an in demand sideman, has played with a wide variety of musicians during his career ranging from disco diva Gloria Gaynor to saxophonists Lee Konitz and Charles Lloyd. A well-known educator and writer, Mintz also showcases his sophisticated compositional skills on this intriguing album.“Ugly Beautiful" for example, is an intense and free flowing piece. ...
read moreMintz Quartet: Mintz Quartet
by Dan McClenaghan
The jazz world is packed with dynamic drummers, and players who raise the job of timekeeping--and beyond--to a fine art. And then there are the supreme poets of the drum kit: The late Paul Motian, with his gentle orchestra of textures, colors, and diaphanous accents; Jack De Johnette, with his bustling undercurrents and rock steady grooves; and, perhaps lesser known, but no less noteworthy, is Billy Mintz, with his melodious, metallic, shuffle-and-bump rhythmic dance. Mintz--who has recorded with ...
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