Jazz Articles about Damon Smith

About Damon Smith

Album Review

Ivo Perelman / Damon Smith: Duologue 6: Core of Existence

Read "Duologue 6: Core of Existence" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
August 10, 2026

Innovative saxophonist Ivo Perelman is a consummate improviser whose spontaneity flourishes in the company of like-minded artists. His Duologues series is a set of duets, each with a stalwart of the creative music scene. Duologues 6: Core of Existence matches Perelman with intrepid bassist Damon Smith, who has a stellar resume in his own right. The 10 collaborative tracks that ensue from this meeting have an incandescent glow and a perfectly balanced ambiance. The album opens with “One" ...

Album Review

Jason Stein / Damon Smith / Adam Shead: Five Nights in the Midwest

Read "Five Nights in the Midwest" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 9, 2026

Their tour did not pass through the Rattlesnake Speedway in the Utah desert. Still, the improvising trio of bass clarinetist Jason Stein, bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Adam Shead conjure a similar sense of a gathering force, like the superstorm evoked in Bruce Springsteen's 1978 song “The Promised Land." “There's a dark cloud rising from the desert floor," Springsteen sings, heading straight into the storm. Stein, Smith, and Shead do much the same. Their music does not trade in rock ...

Album Review

Art Edmaiston & Chad Fowler: Memphis Mandala

Read "Memphis Mandala" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 7, 2026

Recorded live in Memphis, Memphis Mandala is led by Art Edmaiston on tenor and soprano saxophones, alongside Chad Fowler's work on stritch and flute. They are backed by a rhythm section that intuitively knows when to push the accelerator and when to let the engine idle in neutral. The result is collective improvisation--with two drummers--that feels less like a performance and more like five people arguing passionately about the meaning of life, only they are using horns and drums instead ...

Album Review

Art Edmaiston / Chad Fowler: Memphis Mandala

Read "Memphis Mandala" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
March 18, 2026

We often approach recordings as if they were live performances: fully present in the moment, deeply engaged, and then rarely revisited. Like a concert, the sounds drift into the ether, lingering in memory and, perhaps, subtly reshaping the listener's internal landscape. Yet Memphis Mandala, the 2024 live collaboration between saxophonists Art Edmaiston and Chad Fowler, resists that pattern. Though comfortably situated under the free jazz rubric, this is a recording that rewards, and arguably demands, repeated listening. Each ...

Album Review

Marco Eneidi Quintet: Wheat Fields of Kleylehof

Read "Wheat Fields of Kleylehof" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 30, 2025

To borrow a phrase once associated with Charlie Parker after his death: “Marco Eneidi lives!" Though less widely known in the mainstream jazz world, alto saxophonist Marco Eneidi (1956--2016) was a towering figure in free jazz and creative music. A West Coast native, he moved to New York in the 1980s and, following the passing of Jimmy Lyons, assumed the alto chair in Cecil Taylor's band. Taylor's rigorous methodology had a profound impact on Eneidi, as did the energy of ...

Album Review

Stefan Keune / Sandy Ewen / Damon Smith: Two Felt-Tip Pens: Live At Moers

Read "Two Felt-Tip Pens: Live At Moers" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
July 29, 2025

This recording from the Moers Festival in May 2023, Germany, is dedicated to the late Hans Schneider. Bassist and label curator Damon Smith has made it a lifelong practice to seek out and collaborate with his musical heroes, a list that includes Jaap Blonk, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Kaiser and Vinny Golia. Naturally, that list also honors pioneering bassists like Joëlle Léandre, Peter Kowald, Bertram Turetzky--and Schneider, who passed away in 2024. Joining Smith for this performance are American ...

Album Review

Roscoe Mitchell: One Head Four People

Read "One Head Four People" reviewed by Fran Kursztejn

by Fran Kursztejn
February 7, 2025

"I'm always trying to take what's there and, in the end, make it sound like nothing's missing from it," Roscoe Mitchell relates in a 2016 interview, in relation to his string of European solo concerts, yet the statement is just as relevant to the jazz giant's newest studio release, One Head Four People, as any other. The recording comes just as Mitchell's 2014 performance (released on ugEXPLODE, 2021) A Railroad Spike Forms the Voice celebrates its ten year anniversary, and ...