Jazz Articles about Chris Kelsey

About Chris Kelsey

Album Review

Emerging from New York's experimental underground, What You May Call It treats the avant-garde less as a destination than as a starting point. Da Qi (Chinese for atmosphere or elegant) pushes that logic hard enough to test even seasoned listeners. This is not a record interested in easing anybody into the experience. The band rarely signals where anything is headed, forcing listeners to either commit fully or wander off in search of safer weather. The album opens with ...

Bailey's Bundles

Jazz Quanta January: Chris Kelsey and Tomas R. Einarsson

by C. Michael Bailey
January 6, 2016

There are two jazz traditions represented in Jazz Quant January, the freedom principle of saxophonist Christ Kelsey and cool complexity of Latin jazz by way of Icelander bassist Tomas R. Einarsson. Two traditions transplanted and allowed to flourish. Chris Kelsey Duets | NYC / Woodstock Tzazz Krytyk 2015 What happens with free jazz stalwarts saxophonist Chris Kelsey meets one Dom Minasi, the guitarist of the future past? A freedom ...

Album Review

Chris Kelsey/Lewis Porter: Free: Kelsey/Porter Duo Plays Ornette, Vol. 1

Read "Free: Kelsey/Porter Duo Plays Ornette, Vol. 1" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
December 24, 2015

Intrepid saxophonist and recovering jazz journalist Chris Kelsey went to his longtime friend, renowned author-educator-pianist Dr. Lewis Porter, with the idea of recording some of Ornette Coleman's music. That's how Free came to be, plain and simple. But nothing is really that simple. Kelsey and Porter worked through this material for a year, allowing the music to have ample time to settle into the mind and soul, and then they recorded these seldom-performed pieces in March of 2015. The album ...

Extended Analysis

Chris Kelsey & What I Say: The Electric Miles Project

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
August 3, 2013

Trumpeter Miles Davis' post-Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970), pre-hiatus (1975-1981) electric music--dense, loud, dark, funky, vast--has posed problems for musicians. The Yo Miles! collective, led by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and guitarist Henry Kaiser, gamely approached it as a repertoire: these are songs, they seemed to say; let's just play them (and so they did, on albums like Upriver, Cuneiform, 2005). Bassist/impresario Bill Laswell, meanwhile, approached the releases of the period as post-performance collage, woven together from miles of Ampex tape; ...

Album Review

Chris Kelsey & What I Say: The Electric Miles Project

Read "The Electric Miles Project" reviewed by Mehdi El Mouden

by Mehdi El Mouden
July 28, 2013

Chris Kelsey and What I Say say it all. The Electric Miles Project is definitely well thought-out, projected, masterfully arranged, and meticulously performed. Contrary to Miles Davis' school of thought, improvisation on this project seems not to have been part of the agenda. Kelsey clearly knows exactly how to pay tribute to the late legend and, to this purpose, avoids messing with the master: no trumpeter is featured on the album. To play in Miles Davis' shadow or to do ...

Album Review

Chris Kelsey & What I Say: The Electric Miles Project

Read "The Electric Miles Project" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 16, 2013

It takes no shortage of fortitude for contemporary artists to take on the electric Miles Davis. Banking off of his seminal Bitches' Brew (Columbia, 1970), the trumpeter headed for looser, louder and funkier fare, culminating in the twin two-disc releases, Agartha (Columbia, 1975) and Pangea (Columbia, 1976), two shows performed in the afternoon and evening of February 1, 1975 at Japan's Osaka Festival Hall. Laden with electric guitar, seditious percussion and an assortment of effects, Davis spins noisy magic off ...

Album Review

The Chris Kelsey 4: Not Cool

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 16, 2010

"Nulla di personale contro Paul Desmond - afferma Chris Kelsey nelle efficaci note di copertina - molto semplicemente il mio modo di intendere il jazz non ha nulla a che vedere con il suo suono cristallino, le sue frasi sinuose e perfette, la sua musica per bene". E in effetti già dalle prime note si intuisce chiaramente come i riferimenti del sassofonista di Bangor, Maine, siano ben altri, e hanno nome Coltrane, Shepp, Braxton, Ayler, Coleman. Così in Not Cool, ...