Jazz Articles about Brad Shepik

Brad Shepik: Human Activity Suite

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 4, 2009

Commissionato dalla Chamber Music Orchestra, Human Activity Suite è un progetto ambizioso incentrato sul tema della salvaguardia ambientale. Un'opera che trascende i confini del jazz per concentrarsi sul retaggio musicale dei continenti. Suoni etnici, musica folk e rock per un percorso variegato in cui a spiccare è la chitarra del leader. Pur non essendo un disco di solo jazz, è jazzistico il modo con cui Shepik spazia con libertà tra musica e istanze sociali. Vi si ritrovano rimandi all'Asia, Africa, ...

Arthur Kell: Victoria (Live in Germany)

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 22, 2009

Il bassista americano Arthur Kell è stato particolarmente attivo negli ultimi vent'anni, suonando con molti dei protagonisti della scena musicale newyorchese, passando da Thomas Chapin a Bobbie Previte, da Marc Ribot a Billy Bang, da Mark Feldman ad Art Baron e tanti altri. Ha già alle spalle due buoni album e per questa terza uscita come leader ha deciso di utilizzare il meglio di due concerti in Germania (uno a Colonia, uno a Karlsruhe) che due emittenti radiofoniche avevano registrato ...

Brad Shepik: Human Activity Suite

by Jerry D'Souza
March 16, 2009

In June 2008, Brad Shepik premiered his work Human Activity Suite: Sounding a Response to Climate Change in New York. It was born out of his concern for the environment and the impact of climate change.

Shepik, who is drawn to the music of other countries, wrote one tune for each of the seven continents, augmenting the suite with three more. His compositions soak up the music of various lands, showcasing his adaptation of the folk forms--albeit, as ...

Brad Shepik: Human Activity Suite

by Stuart Broomer
March 14, 2009

Brad Shepik's Human Activity Suite is a ten-part mingling of world music materials from various cultures and ecological concerns. Sponsored by Chamber Music America's New Works program, the project sees guitarist Shepik enlarging his usual trio with Gary Versace on keyboards and Tom Rainey on drums to include trumpeter Ralph Alessi and bassist Drew Gress. The result is downright orchestral; Alessi adding clarion leads to the guitarist's works as Gress thickens the already complex, underlying textures. Seven ...

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 ...