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Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz: Lado B Brazilian Project 2
by Pierre Giroux
Catina DeLuna and Otmaro Ruíz have once again teamed up to explore the rich tapestry of Brazilian music in Lado B Brazilian Project 2. As a follow-up to their earlier exploration of this repertoire, this album sees the duo delve even deeper into Brazil's lyrical and melodic treasures, producing results that are both innovative and rooted in tradition. They have assembled a stellar band to perform Ruíz's arrangements, including two carry-overs from their first edition: guitarist Larry Koonse and bassist ...
Continue ReadingCatina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz: Lado B Brazilian Project 2
by Katchie Cartwright
In a time of disembodied digital-only releases, luxuriously well-crafted albums like Catina DeLuna and Otmaro Ruiz's Lado B Brazilian Project 2, with physical disk, album notes, lyric translations and evocative graphics, can really be the balm. The project was born in 2015 with the release of Lado B Brazilian Project (Self Produced), which received a Grammy nomination in 2016. The idea was to interpret what we might call Great Brazilian Songbook--classics by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chico Buarque, Dorival ...
Continue ReadingCarol Robbins: Taylor Street
by Roger Farbey
In the context of jazz, the harp is a rare instrument indeed and there are proportionately few players in the field. Two exponents of this rare art are Alice Coltrane and the British harpist David Snell whose library composition “International Flight" is a jazz harp classic. A third is Carol Robbins, whose album Taylor Street is the follow-up to her 2012 album Moraga. It's important to emphasise that this is an ensemble album, so the musicians are afforded ...
Continue ReadingCarol Robbins: Moraga
by Hrayr Attarian
The harp is certainly rare in jazz and so its role in a traditional combo is not well defined. Alice Coltrane, for example used it as a supplement to her keyboards, while Adele Girard, played it like a boogie woogie piano. Others like Janet Putnam and Betty Glamann were relegated to a rhythm guitar role in bands--very few approached it as a frontline instrument. Of those few, perhaps, the most preeminent representative is Dorothy Ashby who revolutionized the harp, taking ...
Continue ReadingCarol Robbins: Moraga
by Dan Bilawsky
While the harp is often pigeonholed as an instrument that belongs in the confines of classical music, artists like Carol Robbins, Zeena Parkins and Edmar Castaneda are helping to change public perception about this topic. Castaneda has created rhythmically engaging music that's high on excitement, and Parkins is constantly breaking barriers by invading every area, from edgy, alternative rock to avant-garde jazz, with her harp in hand(s); but Robbins is the one that found a way to manipulate the instrument's ...
Continue ReadingCarol Robbins: Moraga
by Edward Blanco
The harp is probably one of the least recognized and utilized instruments in jazz yet, the jazz harp is as much a part of the genre as the saxophone, with only a handful of musicians making it their instrument of choice. The late Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, along with Lori Andrews, Columbian Edmar Castaneda and Frenchman Jakez Francois are a few of the exponents of the harp within the jazz realm. There is another prominent member of this list ...
Continue ReadingCarol Robbins: Jazz Play
by Elliott Simon
Close in timbre to a guitar but with a much wider scope and open feel, the concert harp can both thrill with sheets of sound and soothe with delicate nuance. There is all this and more on Jazz Play. Harpist Carol Robbins places her instrument in the midst of a jazz ensemble for a most agreeable musical junction that features new music and delightful takes on standards. Aided by the flexible rhythm section of bassist Derek Oles and drummer Tim ...
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