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Jazz Articles about Brandon Seabrook
Moers Festival Interviews: Brandon Seabrook
by Martin Longley
Brandon Seabrook cultivates a forked assault on the guitar and the banjo, amplifying both of them, and negotiating their strings at high speeds, filling his playing with hyper-detailed improvisations, or constructing complex compositional strategies, frequently referred to as 'riffs.' Seabrook has long been a crucial presence on the New York City scene, whether leading his own bands, or collaborating with a variegated host of artists on the jazz, rock and improvisational scenes. Often within the same unit. He's ...
Continue ReadingTomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March
by Jerome Wilson
This is the second release by drummer and vibraphonist Tomas Fujiwara's unique double trio with himself and Gerald Cleaver on drums, Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook on guitar and Taylor Ho Bynum and Ralph Alessi on brass, a group that can be configured as two trios, three pairs of instruments or something in between. The sound of the resulting combinations can come out ambient or raucous, but tends towards an angular prog-jazz fusion sound, that can pack the punch of ...
Continue ReadingTomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March
by Mark Corroto
Drummer, composer and vibraphonist Tomas Fujiwara did not set out to rebut the saying “familiarity breeds contempt," but March from his sextet Triple Double does just that. His combination of three pairs of double instruments—guitarists Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook, cornet/trumpets Taylor Ho Bynum and Ralph Alessi, plus double drummers Gerald Cleaver and Tomas Fujiwara himself—creates respect, the opposite of contempt. The harmonious and organic nature of this music, first heard on their self-titled debut album Triple Double (Firehouse 12, ...
Continue ReadingTomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March
by Troy Dostert
Drummer Tomas Fujiwara's March, another offering from his Triple Double sextet, was recorded in December 2019, prior to the widespread racial unrest that followed the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others in 2020. But it feels completely of a piece with those protests, with an unsettled anger and impatience that animate every moment of this absorbing album. Creating music that seems perfectly suited for a tumultuous age, Fujiwara's compositional instincts are spot-on, and he once again marshals ...
Continue ReadingThree-Layer Cake: Stove Top
by Chris M. Slawecki
If nothing else, the trio of Mike Pride (drums, marimba, glockenspiel, bells, organ), Brandon Seabrook (guitar, banjo, tapes) and Mike Watt (bass) deserves a “truth in advertising" award, because Stove Top, their first collaboration, is precisely that: a three-layer instrumental cake. Stove Top began cooking when Pride appeared as a guest on Watt's podcast. Suspecting their musical connection, Pride recorded a series of drum tracks and sent them to Watt, who laid down matching bass tracks and then ...
Continue ReadingBrandon Seabrook: Convulsionaries
by Don Phipps
This exciting freewheeling, free-playing, ear-stretching, mind-expanding set from composer / guitarist Brandon Seabrook strives for new ground in music--a hybrid of modern classical idioms and experimental jazz. It succeeds. The music stretches what one might conceive of as “jazz." Joined by Henry Fraser on bass and Daniel Levin on cello, Seabrook accomplishes his breakthrough by mixing formalism, improvisation, and experimentation in new and stunning fashion. The set begins with the arrhythmic, jolting, slightly disturbing “Bovicidal." Seabrook ...
Continue ReadingBrandon Seabrook: Die Trommel Fatale
by Vincenzo Roggero
Brandon Seabrook è personaggio che non passa inosservato. Che metta la sua arte al servizio di gruppi altrui o scenda in campo con la sua musica il marchio di fabbrica è impresso a fuoco nelle corde degli strumenti utilizzati. Chitarra e banjo si trasformano nelle sue mani in carboni ardenti che danno fuoco a tutto quello che incontrano, che spiazzano, destabilizzano, demoliscono, ricompongono. Se il Seabrook Power Plant -con due splendidi CD all'attivo -è la formazione che marca il territorio, ...
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