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Jazz Articles about Chris Cheek
Rajiv Jayaweera: Pistils
by Friedrich Kunzmann
New York-based drummer Rajiv Jayaweera had quite the international upbringing. Born in London to Sri Lankan parents, Jayaweera grew up in Melbourne, where he completed his Bachelor of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts before finishing his Masters in Jazz studies in New York in 2013. In the liner notes of his debut album Pistils, Jayaweera explains that the album is dedicated to his grandparents and the music on it draws inspiration from his Sri Lankan roots and ...
Continue ReadingRajiv Jayaweera: Pistils
by Dan Bilawsky
While London-born, Melbourne-reared, New York-based drummer Rajiv Jayaweera's work is naturally colored by his experiences spanning those points on the map, it's his Sri Lankan heritage that most greatly informs and influences this debut. Drawing inspiration from memories of nature, sounds and scents surrounding his grandparents' garden there, Jayaweera creates a musical sanctuary and wonderland painted in vivid colors. Pistils, a title referencing the seed-bearing, reproductive portion of a flower, plays on blooming beauty at its first ...
Continue ReadingAndrew Hartman: Compass
by Edward Blanco
New York-based jazz guitarist Andrew Hartman offers his second album as leader with the modern jazz-like Compass featuring nine originals and a newly-arranged rendition of the Paul Simon classic “America." The music is decidedly modern with a taste of the Brazilian and Indian musical influences. Originally from Cincinnati, OH, Hartman moved to London, UK in 2011 where he worked as a freelance musician and teacher and during that time, the guitarist began working on a handful of compositions and arrangements ...
Continue ReadingCharlie Haden / Liberation Music Orchestra: Time/Life:Songs For The Whales And Other Beings
by Ian Patterson
Formed by bassist Charlie Haden in 1969 to protest America's war in Vietnam/Indochina, the Liberation Music Orchestra has reconvened roughly every ten years to record musical protest in the face of major injustices. Time/Life: Song for the Whales and Other Beings was inspired by concern at global ecological destruction, and to that end the music has a pervasive melancholy colored by the LMO's signature lyricism, and broken up by stirring collective and individual passages. The LMO's personnel has ...
Continue ReadingCharlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra: Time / Life
by Giuseppe Segala
Due anni dopo la scomparsa di Charlie Haden si pubblica questo ultimo documento della sua Liberation Music Orchestra, un lavoro che il compianto contrabbassista progettò ma che non ebbe modo di portare a compiuta realizzazione. Vessillo del suo impegno civile e umano, l'orchestra era nata nel 1969 raccogliendo una pletora di musicisti straordinari, molti dei quali oggi non sono più con noi: Don Cherry, Gato Barbieri, Dewey Redman, Paul Motian. L'album è forse diverso da quello che sarebbe ...
Continue ReadingChris Cheek: Presents Saturday Songs
by Vincenzo Roggero
Il nome di Chris Cheek ricorre in più di ottanta album a conferma del suo riconosciuto ruolo di “musician for musicians." I dischi da leader sono in netta minoranza e la sua ultima registrazione in questa veste risale al lontano 2005 (Blues Cruise -Fresh Sound New Talent). Peccato perché le sue doti di band leader, di ottimo compositore e ispirato organizzatore di suoni (la lunga permanenza nella seminale Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band è un bel biglietto da visita), trapelate ...
Continue ReadingChris Cheek: Saturday Songs
by Jakob Baekgaard
The idea that jazz has to renew itself sometimes results in rather pretentious and purely intellectual experiments with form, but it is possible to play inventive and intellectually stimulating music without losing a sense of fun and inclusive curiosity. Saxophonist Chris Cheek is the proof. Cheek comes with a refreshingly unprejudiced approach to music and this is evident on his long-awaited follow- up to his previous album as a leader, Blues Cruise, (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2006). ...
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