Jazz Articles about Christopher Zuar

About Christopher Zuar

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
December 30, 2024

È decisamente un periodo d'oro per l'orchestrazione jazz. Ai molti bandleader e arrangiatori emersi nel nuovo millennio, si aggiunge decisamente Christopher Zuar, che firma il secondo album confermando le doti espresse in Musings (Sunnyside), il debutto di otto anni fa. Con un diploma al New England Conservatory e un master alla Manhattan School of Music, Zuar aggiunge una spiccata fantasia nell'arricchire il modern mainstream orchestrale di nuove suggestioni. Questo progetto è stato concepito tra il 2017 e ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 23, 2024

Composer/arranger Christopher Zuar's second album, Exuberance, recounts in musical terms a twisting yet picturesque journey that began seven years earlier, in 2017, when Zuar first met his now-wife, the animator Anne Beal, at MacDowell, the famed artists' residency in New Hampshire. While the relationship “blooms" in winter, there are “moments between" and other inescapable detours until “certainty" erases any lingering doubts, “exuberance" carries the day and Zuar and Beal are united as one. Yes, the music is ...

Radio & Podcasts

Christopher Zuar, Kenny Barron, and Andrea Wolper

by Jerome Wilson
September 11, 2024

This episode features a wide variety of approaches, such as large ensemble jazz from Christopher Zuar and Eberhard Weber, small group work from Kenny Barron and Artemis, and vocals from Andrea Wolper and Tiziana Ghiglioni. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Sarah Wilson “Felta Road" from Kaleidoscope (Brasstonic) 00:51 Eberhard Weber “Silent Feet" from Stages of a Long Journey ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
May 13, 2024

Exuberance is part of a “long-form tonal conversation" between composer Christopher Zuar and animator Anne Beal. Zuar, a Long Island New Yorker, describes the work as “a journey of personal growth," which began in 2017 when he and Beal met as fellows at the MacDowell Colony in the woods of New Hampshire. He explains that the album is a “collaborative project that charts the last seven years of our lives." “In Winter Blooms," the opening track, grew out ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Musings

Read "Musings" reviewed by Neri Pollastri

by Neri Pollastri
February 23, 2017

Esordio discografico per il ventinovenne newyorchese Christopher Zuar, nato trombettista ma ormai dedito alla composizione e all'arrangiamento, che infatti pratica in questo lavoro che lo vede alla direzione di un'orchestra di diciassette elementi, che arrivano a diciannove in alcune tracce con l'ingresso di percussioni e voce. Il lavoro è tutto sommato convenzionale, tipico di una grande orchestra che si muove sfruttando l'ampia tavolozza timbrica e la qualità dei solisti a sua disposizione. Qualità che in questo caso è ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Musings

by Budd Kopman
June 22, 2016

There is no doubt that composer Christopher Zuar's debut recording Musings is an impressive achievement. The sheer overall sonic brilliance and obvious control of the instrumental forces at hand signal a talent to be reckoned with. Not even thirty at the time of the recording, Zuar's music is surprisingly mature and well conceived. The issue, then, becomes one of finding or developing a recognizable voice in a field (jazz orchestra) which is dominated by a few voices which ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Musings

by Jack Bowers
April 11, 2016

When a composer / arranger who hasn't yet turned thirty can enlist the caliber of musicians who are present and accounted for on Musings, the inescapable assumption is that something special is afoot. Upon listening, that appraisal proves to be quite accurate, as young Christopher Zuar (twenty-seven when this debut album was recorded) presents seven of his uncommonly erudite and perceptive compositions (and one, which he arranged, by Egberto Gismonti) that together signal the emergence of an exemplary talent.