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Jazz Articles about Curtis Nowosad
David Ecker: How to Rebuild
by Carl Medsker
Attempting to enhance jazz with classical music trappings is nothing new and has previously yielded mixed results. Often, the music comes across as saccharine, or the strings serve as mere window dressing to add a faux classical touch. At best, when the two worlds are creatively combined, the emergent results are something new and vibrant. Frequently, though, the jazz component and its companion classical group alternate and support each other, which, although it can be beautiful at times, dodges the ...
Continue ReadingDavid Ecker: Respite (Despite)
by Dan McClenaghan
The Covid pandemic has been educational. One of its lessons is (to paraphrase a famous movie): music finds a way. If getting together in the studio is a problem, then grab the technology and go the remote recording route. It worked for guitarist Justin Morell and drummer Mark Ferber on 2022's Exit Music For Intelligent Life On Earth (Sonic Frenzy Records), and it works for pianist David Ecker in 2023, with his sophomore outing, Respite (Despite). The recording ...
Continue ReadingDerrick Gardner & The Big dig! Band: Still I Rise
by Jack Bowers
Trumpeter Derrick Gardner, a Chicagoan who has performed around the world with a who's who of jazz luminaries from Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Foster to Nancy Wilson, Tony Bennett and Harry Connick Jr., to name only a few, traveled to Winnipeg, Canada, to assemble and record his Big Dig! Band, several sizes removed from Gardner's sextet, The Jazz Prophets, a working group since it was formed in New York City in 1991. Gardner not only shines as trumpet ...
Continue ReadingCurtis Nowosad: Dialectics
by Dan Bilawsky
While it may be tempting to simply call Dialectics a straight-ahead session, Kevin Sun's liner notes set the record straight: According to Sun, “neo-hard bop" is a more accurate term for this music. What's most important to note, however, is that the music is pretty irresistible, regardless of what you call it. On the sophomore album from Curtis Nowosad, the drummer delivers an invigorating program of music with a killer quintet born out of the Winnipeg native's ...
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