Jazz Articles about Carmen Staaf

About Carmen Staaf

Album Review

A lot of personal factors go into saxophonist Dan Blake's music on this CD, such as his concerns about the environment, his Buddhist teachings and his social activism. What comes out of this is a style of electro-acoustic jazz which is alternately meditative and fiery. The basic music here was performed in the studio by a quartet of Blake on saxophone, Carmen Staaf on piano, Dmitry Ishenko on bass and Jeff Williams on drums. The tunes were then ...

Album Review

Dan Blake: Da Fé

by Mike Jurkovic
April 17, 2021

It's comforting to know that saxophonist Dan Blake hasn't taken Thoreau's inconvenient truth that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation" to heart. Instead, as his Da Fé (translated: of faith) and his apprenticeships with Anthony Braxton} and {{Julian Lage prove succinctly, Blake intends to bring the music, and the consciousness of our fragility within it, to the fore, in hopes the listener can shake the malaise too and pick up the call for action. Blake escorts his ...

Album Review

Thana Alexa: ONA

by Angelo Leonardi
April 15, 2021

Ci giunge con un po' di ritardo questo secondo disco della talentuosa vocalist e compositrice Thana Alexa, ma va assolutamente considerato. Anche questo, come già il debutto Ode to Heroes, è un tributo: dalle figure musicali che l'hanno influenzata siamo passati a una celebrazione del genere femminile e al ruolo—spesso sottovalutato—che svolgono nel mondo. Nata a New York da famiglia croata, Thana è tornata nell'infanzia in Croazia dov'è rimasta per completare i suoi studi. Successivamente si è ...

Album Review

Dan Blake: Da Fé

by Mark Corroto
March 2, 2021

Saxophonist-composer Dan Blake's Da Fé ("of faith"), a meditation on our world in crisis, may have taken, as a starting point, the lyrics to Lou Reed's “Busload Of Faith" from the über-cynical New York (Sire, 1989) recording, “You can depend on cruelty / crudity of thought and sound / You can depend on the worst always happening / you need a busload of faith to get by." What with global warming, income disparity, hunger, and homelessness, the gentle folk of ...

Album Review

Allegra Levy: Lose My Number

Read "Lose My Number" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
December 7, 2020

Allegra Levy is a young singer who has made a reputation for herself through her witty songwriting and performing. She has sung a lot of her own songs on previous releases but on this one, she changes things slightly by writing her own lyrics to the music of trumpet player John McNeil. McNeil was Levy's mentor at the New England Conservatory and she complements his slightly off-balance tunes with lyrics that range from the dark and sardonic to ...

Album Review

Nicole Zuraitis: All Wandering Hearts

Read "All Wandering Hearts" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
July 24, 2020

Nicole Zuraitis has a heart full of soul and a voice full of sunshine. She's got a mix of things on her mind with her fourth album, everyday themes and weighty matters alike, and yet they ultimately come out sounding exuberant in her hands. The fundamental optimism is one key asset of All Wandering Hearts, even if her variety of jazzy coffee-shop balladry is no less eloquent in the spots when things get more somber. The too-spirited-for-AOR “Make ...

Album Review

Thana Alexa: ONA

by Doug Collette
April 5, 2020

A departure from Thana Alexa's first album Ode to Heroes (Harmonia Mundi/Jazz Village, 2015), ONA is also rooted in jazz, but it showcases Alexa's use of her voice as both a lyrical and experimental instrument. Commencing immediately on the title tune, this mostly original material features arrangements in various combinations of atmospheric, electronic soundscapes and exotic instrumental textures, complementing a voice which enchants as often through its feather-light air as its full-throated tones. Co-produced with master drummer Antonio Sanchez--with whom ...