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Jazz Articles about Colin Stranahan

About Colin Stranahan

268

Album Review

Colin Stranahan: Life Condition

Read "Life Condition" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 27, 2010

Drummer Colin Stranahan was something of a prodigy, gigging around his home town of Denver, Colorado, aged 11 years and releasing his first album, Dreams Untold (Capri Records, 2004) at the age of 17. Life Condition is his third album--inspired by a trip to India with Herbie Hancock and the Monk Institute Band. It's a mix of originals and standards performed in the main by a trio of Stranahan, alto saxophonist Ben Van Gelder and bassist Chris Smith, with tenor ...

Album Review

Colin Stranahan: Transformation

Read "Transformation" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone

by Michael P. Gladstone
April 27, 2006

It is good to hear that the young drummer and bandleader Colin Stranahan is continuing his musical growth with Transformation. Like his debut 2004 album, Dreams Untold, this one features an quintet (largely consisting of new personnel) and provides all original tunes, many in an Art Blakey Jazz Messengers mode. Tenor saxophonist Michael Bailey returns, joined on four tracks by trumpeter Greg Gisbert; Jim Stranahan appears once, playing alto sax on his own composition, “It's Not Always About You."

153

Album Review

Colin Stranahan: Transformation

Read "Transformation" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
April 9, 2006

Dramatic modern mainstream jazz pours forth from Colin Stranahan's dynamic quintet, with exotic melodic stanzas flowing in many directions at once. His cohesive band interprets this program of originals directly with a positive force. It's a composer's forum. Saxophonist Remy Le Boeuf contributed three pieces and his eighteen-year-old twin brother, pianist Pascal Le Boeuf, contributed two. Bassist Dominic Thiroux contributed two, and the leader contributed two more. Colin's father, Jim, who plays alto on his contribution, wrote “It's Not Always ...

126

Album Review

Colin Stranahan: Transformation

Read "Transformation" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 27, 2006

Can anybody in this band buy a beer, legally? Nobody in the rhythm section can. Drummer/leader Colin Stranahan is nineteen years old, pianist Pascal Le Boeuf is eighteen, and bassist Dominic Thiroux is just a year older. Reaching outside the rhythm team, reedman Remy Le Boeuf--Pascal's twin, incidentally--is, of course, also eighteen years of age. Which would leave all the beer runs to tenor saxophonist Michael Bailey, the old man of the core group at 21.But considering the ...

137

Album Review

Colin Stranahan: Dreams Untold

Read "Dreams Untold" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 21, 2004

"No one's interested in your lack of confidence," the late bandleader/drummer Art Blakey would tell a fledgling band member. “Get out there and play with an attitude."Drummer Colin Stranahan, whether or not he's heard that specific message, seems to have taken the spirit of the advice to heart. Though it's not so much an attitude he plays with on Dreams Untold, but an assurance and poise remarkable for a musician just seventeen years old.The drummer's father, ...

Album Review

Colin Stranahan Quintet: Dreams Untold

Read "Dreams Untold" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 20, 2004

"I want to state the fact that my music isn't all about how fast we can play, or how many chops we have, but to get the point across of emotion and feeling." Words of wisdom from any player at any age, but especially telling from drummer Colin Stranahan who, at the tender age of seventeen, has released his first group recording with Dreams Untold. Musicians twice his age often continue to struggle with the dilemma of style versus substance, ...