Jazz Articles about Brad Shepik

Brad Shepik: Human Activity Suite

by J Hunter
March 5, 2009

Theoretically, it should be difficult to do protest music without lyrics; nevertheless, that hasn't stopped Terence Blanchard, Ben Allison, and--most recently--Jeff “Tain" Waits from launching heat-seeking discs aimed right at the heart of some of this decade's most sensitive political issues. Now it's guitarist Brad Shepik's turn at bat with Human Activity Suite, only he's done things a little differently.

While Allison's Cowboy Justice (Palmetto, 2006), Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will: Requiem for Katrina (Blue Note, 2007), and Tain's ...

Brad Shepik: Human Activity Suite

by Martin Gladu
February 20, 2009

Deep-blue oceans, airbrushed clouds, flaking dabs of greens receding into desolate plains... Remember the first time you saw a picture of the Earth? Remember that feeling?Did you know one can cover the Earth with one's thumb when standing from the Moon? Defenseless in the pitch-black, still silence of the Universe, our home--at least, that of the time of a few nanoseconds stolen from eternity--now faces more threats from its own inhabitants than from other celestial bodies possibly hitting ...

Brad Shepik: Human Activity Suite

by Mark Corroto
February 6, 2009

Social issues are not new to jazz composers. Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus wrote music in the heyday of the civil right movement and more recently Charlie Haden produced his antiwar Not In Our Name (Verve, 2005) for his Liberation Music Orchestra. Guitarist Brad Shepik, like many of us, is thinking globally. He speaks to the issues of climate change with his Human Activity Suite.

Commissioned by Chamber Music America and funded by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, he ...

Brad Shepik: Human Activity Suite

by Matt Marshall
February 5, 2009

Guitarist Brad Shepik has admitted that a strictly musical approach to environmental issues may not be as persuasive as a song that can speak directly to specific problems with its lyrics. Nevertheless, his Human Activity Suite, a series of world music pieces intermixed with pieces highlighting the causes and effects of global climate change, is a powerful call for awareness, unity and action. It inspires with a universal glow rarely touched by song. Commissioned by Chamber Music ...

Brad Shepik: Human Activity Suite

by Troy Collins
February 3, 2009

A powerful indictment of mankind's role in global warming, Human Activity Suite is guitarist Brad Shepik's most expansive and earnest project to date. Global warming is an issue close to Shepik's heart, as explained in a December 2008 interview with Frank A. Matzner.A well-versed world traveler, Shepik has explored many cultural traditions--both on his own albums, and as a member of “world music" collectives such as Babkas, Lingua Franca, Pachora and Triduga, as well as Matt Darriau's Paradox ...

Brad Shepik: Sounding A Global Warming Warning

by Franz A. Matzner
December 8, 2008

As can only happen in New York, I stumbled upon guitarist Brad Shepik's portentous suite Human Activity entirely serendipitously. Visiting New York for the day on extra-musical business, the evening began as a step around the corner to the 55 Bar to sample whatever music was on tap and quickly transformed into a night of singularly arresting music in the form of Shepik's debut of a suite constructed around the theme of global climate change.

Salient due to ...

Brad Shepik: Places You Go

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 3, 2007

Da tempo il chitarrista Brad Shepik sta costruendosi una carriera importante, nel solco del jazz moderno. Sembra non aver fretta di arrivare e i suoi progetti discografici hanno la giusta cadenza per rimanere fissati come chiodi piantati con cura sulla parete, ognuno ben saldo per diventare uno snodo di passaggio che facilita la scalata complessiva. Questo Places You Go non fa eccezione. Il disco nasce da quella che i professionisti del marketing identificherebbero come la classica situazione nella quale un ...