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Jazz Articles about Charles Pillow
Charles Pillow: Sound Crafter
by Victor L. Schermer
Charles Pillow is a musician's musician who works with diverse ensembles from jazz to pops to classical, small group to large ensemble, straight-ahead to avant-garde. He grew up in Baton Rouge, La., and studied music at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, before eventually settling in the New York City area as a working professional.He has worked with groups, vocalists, and leaders as varied as Dave Liebman, Michael Brecker, Jay Z, Broadway pit orchestras, Mariah Carey and ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober & The Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Quake
by Elliott Simon
Duke Ellington's legacy is alive and well with pianist Mike Holober and The Gotham Jazz Orchestra. Holober makes use of the increased musical scope that 17 pieces give him to weave compositional strength within a sound that sways more than swings. Some of the finest jazzers New York City has to offer join Holober for this session. Their individual talents are certainly showcased but the strength of this release is how Holober fits them all together to ...
Continue ReadingCharles Pillow: Part 3 - The Planets
by Victor L. Schermer
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Charles Pillow The PlanetsArtistShare2007 This review follows Charles Pillow: Part 1--Crossing the Divide between Jazz and Classical Repertoire, an introduction to the work of the reed player and composer, and Charles Pillow: Part 2--Pictures At An Exhibition (ArtistShare, 2005), a review of another Pillow disc. Gustav Mahler said that a symphony should form a universe. If not ...
Continue ReadingCharles Pillow: Part 2 - Pictures at an Exhibition
by Victor L. Schermer
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Charles PillowPictures At An ExhibitionArtistShare2005 This review follows Charles Pillow: Part 1--Crossing the Divide between Jazz and Classical Repertoire, introducing the reed player and composer's work, and is followed by Charles Pillow: Part 3--The Planets a review of a second Pillow disc, The Planets (Artist Share, 2007). Pictures at an Exhibition, made in 2003 but not released until two years later, ...
Continue ReadingCharles Pillow: Part 1 - Crossing the Divide between Jazz and Classical Repertoire
by Victor L. Schermer
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 While jazz began as a form of entertainment, it has evolved into a more serious musical genre. Its multiple roots in gospel, blues, popular, folk, Caribbean, African, and other world musics give it a complexity and richness tailor-made for extended musical explorations and through-composing. In addition, jazz musicians have made use of the music of Debussy, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Bartok and other classical composers as they search for new ways to ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains
by Robert R. Calder
Mike Holober's not just another pianist working within long-established post-Bill Evans methods, he's one of the rare very individually creative ones. Given his more monumental approach, his Gotham Jazz Orchestra can seem something of an extension of his piano work. His orchestration sometimes fills out a piano conception, sometimes interacts with his playing, piano concerto fashion. A band member's solo will sometimes have the full orchestra, sometimes the at times equally full-sounding rhythm section, in accompaniment. Planned and grand. With ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains
by John Kelman
Originally recorded in '96, years before Mike Holober's début small group recording Canyon (Sons of Sound, '03), Thought Trains is only now seeing the light of day, but it continues to assert the pianist/composer/arranger as a dominant new force on the New York scene. And while the larger ensemble context of Thought Trains limits the amount of spontaneous interplay that was prevalent on Canyon , it makes up for that kind of unrestrained exploration with sharp arrangements that make full ...
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