Jazz Articles about Brandon Seabrook

About Brandon Seabrook

Album Review

Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March

by Mark Corroto
March 16, 2022

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, ...

Album Review

Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March

by Troy Dostert
March 4, 2022

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 ...

Album Review

Three-Layer Cake: Stove Top

Read "Stove Top" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
January 6, 2022

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 ...

Album Review

Brandon Seabrook: Convulsionaries

Read "Convulsionaries" reviewed by Don Phipps

by Don Phipps
October 14, 2018

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 ...

Album Review

Brandon Seabrook: Die Trommel Fatale

Read "Die Trommel Fatale" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero

by Vincenzo Roggero
November 20, 2017

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, ...

Album Review

Brandon Seabrook: Sylphid Vitalizers

Read "Sylphid Vitalizers" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
April 8, 2015

Non c'è davvero paragone tra quello che Brandon Seabrook propone all'interno dei diversi gruppi in cui presta la sua luciferina opera di chitarrista (ad esempio Power Plant o i Black Host di Gerald Cleaver) e in questa singolare prova in solitudine. Nel primo caso emerge un talento improvvisativo molto brillante nel confondere avant, rock e psichedelia; qui invece siamo al cospetto di un lavoro di granitica concentrazione nel realizzare una musica tetragona nel rifuggire ogni tentazione narrativa, in nome di ...

Album Review

Brandon Seabrook: Sylphid Vitalizers

Read "Sylphid Vitalizers" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 5, 2015

Guitarist Brandon Seabrook (Andrew Drury, Anthony Braxton) is justifiably garnering considerable press as a burgeoning firebrand who terrorizes or perhaps, atomizes the banjo and guitar with punk metal, free jazz and anarchistic rock proclivities. With his third solo release he conjures otherworldly and brain-bending propositions via an array of highly disciplined supercharged performances on banjo and guitar. He's also a frequent collaborator on the jazz improvisational front amid first-call session duties for new wave jazz productions that our largely outside-the-box. ...