Jazz Articles about Christine Jensen

Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra: Treelines

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 1, 2011

L'aria frizzante del Canada deve avere un effetto benefico sulla conduzione delle big band. La saxofonista Christine Jensen, sorella della più nota Ingrid trombettista, si presenta alla grande con questo ottimo Treelines che riporta d'attualità lo stile di Gil Evans, canadese di origine, cosmopolita di cuore. C'è un evidente anello di congiunzione costituito dal lavoro egregio di Maria Schneider che è stata assistente di Gil nella parte finale della sua carriera e che impiega nella sua big band Ingrid Jensen. ...

Christine Jensen: Looking Left

by Jason Crane
June 12, 2007

The Globe and Mail called saxophonist and composer Christine Jensen “one of the most important Canadian composers of her generation." She grew up with her trumpet-playing sister Ingrid near Vancouver, though she's now based in Montreal. Jensen has recorded three albums. Her most recent project is Look Left (Effendi, 2006), the result of a half-year spent studying and writing in Paris.

AAJ contributor Jason Crane caught up with Jensen to talk about life along the Seine, ...

Christine Jensen: Looking Left

by Jason Crane
June 12, 2007

Christine Jensen: Look Left

by John Kelman
November 15, 2006

While Christine Jensen remains one of Canada's best kept secrets, she has garnered some international attention since emerging on the scene in the mid-1990s. Three of her compositions were featured on the highly regarded Vernal Fields (Enja, 1994), by her sister, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, and she's had works for big band recorded and performed the world over. Still, outside Canada she remains a relatively unknown quantity in the grander scheme of things, something that Look Left deserves to rectify.

Jensen ...

Christine Jensen: A Shorter Distance

by Jerry D'Souza
December 8, 2002

Christine Jensen's maturity is in quick evidence on this album. Not only does she show great skills as a writer, but her arrangements fill her tunes with a pulsating body and show a keen mind for color and layered textures. She presents compositions for quintet, sextet and septet settings, giving each one character and fulfillment.

Jensen does not bow to the popular or the mundane in her writing. Each song is complex and crafted to bring out the ...

Christine Jensen: Collage

by Steve Armour
April 1, 2001

Christine Jensen starts Collage with a blues in fancy wrapping: a funky Rhodes ostinato, a displaced, sliding tonal center, and a stutter-step orchestration. This rich writing asks and gets the most from Jensen's musicians on this, her debut recording.

Drummer Karl Jannuska and pianist Brad Turner chat it up throughout the album. Their open phrasing on “Sweet Adelphi" and “Half Tide" lets the soloists breathe--lets them say something, then rest. Turner leads while Jannuska adds sweeteners and asides: an extra ...