Jazz Articles about Billy Mintz

About Billy Mintz

Album Review

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 ...

Album Review

Billy Mintz: Ugly Beautiful

Read "Ugly Beautiful" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 6, 2017

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 ...

Album Review

Billy Mintz: The 2 Bass Band...Live

Read "The 2 Bass Band...Live" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 5, 2015

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 ...

Album Review

Lena Bloch: Feathery

Read "Feathery" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
October 14, 2014

Moscovita di nascita ma giramondo per natura dopo un primo trasferimento alla volta di Israele datato 1990, Lena Bloch è una solida tenorista formatasi studiando, fra gli altri, con Yusef Lateef, Joe Lovano e in fondo più di tutti Lee Konitz, che l'ha introdotta all'estetica tristaniana, forgiando per sempre il suo linguaggio (e la sua pronuncia, la sua sonorità), che si avverte oggi inequivocabilmente imparentato con quello del grande Warne Marsh. Per questo che risulta essere il ...

Album Review

Lena Bloch: Feathery

Read "Feathery" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 18, 2014

Saxophonist Lena Bloch's Feathery is a cerebral album laced with a mature, tender passion. It is also a collaborative effort with her sidemen contributing to the creative process democratically while maintaining their individuality.Drummer Billy Mintz's thunderous beats and crashing cymbals set an expectant and dramatic mood on Guitarist Dave Miller's solemn and ethereal “Rubato." Miller's haunting almost baroque explorations add a mystical touch while bassist Cameron Brown's bowed and reverberating strings maintain the western classical sensibility while meandering ...

Album Review

Lena Bloch: Feathery

Read "Feathery" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 16, 2014

Russian-born tenor saxophonist Lena Bloch carries a cool burning torch for the music of saxophonist Warne Marsh and the Lennie Tristano school of jazz. For Feathery, her debut CD as a leader, Bloch has assembled a quartet that can rival the loose and interactive and spontaneous ensembles of alto saxophonist Lee Konitz--a Tristano acolyte and Bloch's friend and mentor. Like the marvelous Konitz outing, Live at Birdland (ECM Record, 2011), where the saxophonist was joined by top notch ...

Album Review

Lena Bloch: Feathery

by Jack Bowers
March 6, 2014

On one level, the Russian-born, New York-based tenor saxophonist Lena Bloch's debut album is like stepping into a time machine; on the other hand, one could argue that her approach to music in general and jazz in particular is timeless. Foremost among Bloch's influences are Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh and Lennie Tristano, and the mood on Feathery clearly reflects those associations. In fact, the word “feathery" could serve as an apt description of Bloch's style, which is for the most ...