Home » Jazz Articles » Bob Pilkington
Jazz Articles about Bob Pilkington
Mike Thompson: 6th Avenue
by Jack Bowers
Composer and arranger Mike Thompson was in his mid-twenties when 6th Avenue, his debut album as leader of a big band, was recorded (in the mid-2020s) at Q Division Studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts, enlisting for the most part veteran Boston-area musicians whom Thompson had met and befriended while studying at the Berklee School of Music, from which he was graduated in 2021. Although Thompson names Bob Brookmeyer, Maria Schneider and Igor Stravinsky as role models, you would be ...
Continue ReadingZhengtao Pan Jazz Orchestra: Scenery in My Story
by Jack Bowers
Zhengtao Pan, born in Shanghai, China, less than twenty-five years ago, was already well-known as a designer of video games when he chose to move to Boston, MA, to study jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music. Scenery In My Story is Pan's debut recording as leader of his Jazz Orchestra, and as its title suggests, the music is personal and thematic, tracing in solicitous terms Pan's impactful voyage from Shanghai to Boston. Intimate, yes, but ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles: Home Is Here
by Angelo Leonardi
Home Is Here conclude la trilogia del compositore e bandleader brasiliano Felipe Salles (residente dal 1995 negli USA dove insegna all'Università del Massachusetts Amherst) dedicata al tema dell'immigrazione. Un'indagine musicale e multimediale iniziata nel 2018 con The Lullaby Project e proseguita due anni dopo con The New Immigrant Experience, di cui abbiamo già parlato in queste pagine. Qui Salles focalizza il tema dell'immigrazione nel jazz ed ha invitato otto protagonisti della scena di New York ad esibirsi col ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: Home is Here
by Troy Dostert
For the third recording from his Interconnections Ensemble, tenor saxophonist and composer Felipe Salles chose to put the artists first--literally. That is, he had extensive conversations with each of the guest musicians on the record before composing the pieces on which each would be featured, thus highlighting their own stylistic and personal characteristics. The result is a polychromatic, adventurous album that allows Salles' multidimensionality as a composer to flourish. And with top-shelf guests such as Melissa Aldana, Paquito D'Rivera, and ...
Continue ReadingThe JCA Orchestra: Live At The BPC
by Jerome Wilson
The JCA Orchestra has been an important part of the Boston jazz scene since it formed in 1985. Several of its recordings are dominated by the compositions of its leader, Darrell Katz, but this live concert from the Berklee Performance Center features works by several orchestra members other than Katz and gives a fuller picture of the orchestra's range. Violinist Mimi Rabson contributes two atmospheric pieces. “Romanpole" is a musical culture clash inspired by the period when the ...
Continue ReadingAardvark Jazz Orchestra: Faces Of Souls
by Angelo Leonardi
Si avvicina al cinquantesimo anno di attività l'Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, fondata nel 1973 da Mark Harvey e ancora diretta dall'inossidabile trombettista, compositore e bandleader di Boston. In questo nuovo disco--il decimo pubblicato con la Leo Records e registrato live in varie occasioni--ritroviamo il consueto eclettismo della formazione, capace di passare da quadri in libera improvvisazione a concitazioni rock anche in uno stesso brano. Per la verità stavolta i contrasti sono più smussati e tendono a prevalere compostezza ...
Continue Reading
