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Christian Howes & Richard Galliano: Southern Exposure
by Howard Mandel
Christian Howes wants you to know that Southern Exposure is not simply another violin and accordion record, some light-hearted evocation of Parisian café music. “It's deeper than that," Howes, the 40-year-old violinist who is also an educator and online entrepreneur, says of his 13th album (counting self-produced projects from the 1990s). “I think there's a lot of passion on the record. There's a sort of tragic feel to some of it. “It's distinguished by the fact ...
Continue ReadingYelena Eckemoff: I Am a Stranger in This World
by Mark Sullivan
Russian-born pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff began setting verses from the Bible's Book of Psalms shortly after her conversion to Christianity, even before her emigration to the United States. But she waited until she had considerable experience working with jazz musicians before producing her jazz arrangements. They were first recorded on her album Better Than Gold and Silver [L&H Production, 2018], which presented ten Psalm settings in both vocal and instrumental versions. The detailed story of how Yelena Eckemoff came to set ...
Continue ReadingYelena Eckemoff: I Am a Stranger in This World
by Tyran Grillo
To feel estranged from one's own mind is among the quiet terrors of modern life. It is this condition, ancient yet urgently contemporary, that Yelena Eckemoff confronts on I Am a Stranger in This World, a double album that treats the Psalms of David not as scripture to be recited but as psychic terrain to be crossed. Following 2018's Better Than Gold and Silver (L&H Productions), Eckemoff returns to these texts with renewed gravity. Where the earlier album relied on ...
Continue ReadingIt's Not Your Fault—Just Evolve
by Christian Howes
Christian Howes is arguably one of America's finest jazz violinists, standing alongside past masters such as Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, and John Blake. Many contemporary jazz violinists embrace a broad range of non-jazz styles as players because of choice or circumstance. They think of themselves as improvising violinists who play jazz. But like Jean-Luc Ponty before him, Chris thinks of himself as a jazz musician who happens to play the violin, and he has been acclaimed all over the world ...
Continue ReadingYelena Eckemoff: Better Than Gold and Silver
by Mark Sullivan
Russian-born pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff began setting verses from the Bible's Book of Psalms shortly after her conversion to Christianity, even before her emigration to the United States. But she waited until she had considerable experience working with jazz musicians before attempting these jazz arrangements. The first disc in this double disc set presents settings with two vocalists, tenor Tomás Cruz and mezzo-soprano Kim Mayo, accompanied by a remarkable band: trumpeter Ralph Alessi, guitarist Ben Monder, violinist Christian Howes, bassist Drew ...
Continue ReadingYelena Eckemoff: Better Than Gold and Silver
by Tyran Grillo
Some albums attempt to explain sacred text. Others adorn, elevate, or dramatize it. Better Than Gold and Silver does something rarer. It listens. It waits. It receives. Yelena Eckemoff does not set the Psalms of David to music so much as she attends to them, as though all that remains is to hear what still trembles in their wake. The result is not doctrine rendered audible, but scripture softened by silence, memory, and breath. Belief here is not asserted. It ...
Continue ReadingChristian Howes: Out of the Blue
by AAJ Italy Staff
Il violinista Christian Howes è uno degli interpreti emergenti dello strumento tradizionalmente associato alla musica classica di stampo europeo e portato in ambito jazz e blues da grandi interpreti come Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, Stephane Grapelli, Don Sugarcane Harris e Jean Luc Ponty. Howes ha avuto una formazione classica ma in questo album dimostra di sapere facilmente liberarsi di tutte le reminiscenze accademiche grazie ad una prorompente vitalità che gli fa affrontare nel modo giusto l'incontro col mondo del jazz ...
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