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Jazz Articles about Dana Leong
Vijay Iyer & Mike Ladd: InWhatStrumentals
by Karl Ackermann
In 2003 Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd released In What Language?, a hybrid jazz/hip hop response to post-9/11 American paranoia. Inspired by many related injustices, the inflection point was the extended detention, handcuffing and humiliation of a prominent Iranian filmmaker passing through JFK International Airport. Seventeen years later America was mired in multiple unprecedented crises, giving cause to repurpose that album. Iyer and Ladd had the instrumental masters from 2003, and release them here as InWhatStrumentals: Music from In What ...
read moreTessa Souter: Picture in Black and White
by Victor L. Schermer
New York-based vocalist Tessa Souter is becoming treasured among jazz fans and musicians alike. Equally effective in clubs, in concert and on her several fine recordings, she combines the sonority, vocal range and discipline of a classical contralto with subtle and sultry jazz inflections. Everything she sings is well thought out and in good taste. She works with the best instrumentalists and has a consummate grasp of both swing and the modern jazz idiom, as well as folk and world ...
read moreDana Leong: No Boundaries
by Franz A. Matzner
Whether on the cello, trombone or laptop, whether playing straight-up jazz, classical, or the many hybrid concoctions his work has already produced, Dana Leong seems to acknowledge no boundaries. He has worked with a wide range of players, holds down the cello chair for the Paquito D'Rivera trio, has just released a second album fusing jazz with hip-hop, runs a recording studio, shows up in Hollywood films, and is currently touring as an artistic ambassador with the State Department Rhythm ...
read moreDana Leong: Anthems of Life
by Lyn Horton
According to some dictionaries, anthems connote praise and sacredness. In most cases they are songs of celebration. Life, and how we live it creatively and productively, is to be celebrated as praiseworthy and sacred. Multi-instrumentalist and composer, twenty-seven year-old Dana Leong does this effectively, vividly and without hesitation.
On Anthems of Life, Leong has combined his diverse talents into an album replete with groove, blues, dancing rhythms, and serious messages. The high-stim" characteristics of the recording are something to adapt ...
read moreTake Five With Dana Leong
by AAJ Staff
Meet Dana Leong: Described as crafting lines of sublime lyric content" (Chicago Tribune), and sizzling, highly stylized solos" (Philadelphia Inquirer), Dana started his impressive career with the rare skill of commanding both the cello and trombone. He has held roles as both a performer and composer with top artists including: the 2006 Grammy-nominated jazz chamber trio led by Paquito D'Rivera (where he fills a chair frequented by Yo-Yo Ma); the 2007 Grammy-nominated Dafnis Prieto Absolute Quintet; and ...
read moreDana Leong Quintet: Leaving New York
by Tom Greenland
"Earth living birth rhythm... it grows and grows, in studios and shows, amassing energy, momentum, it rolls from New York to the whole globe. These words, excerpted from Baba Isarael's Poem, the opening cut on cellist/trombonist Dana Leong's debut recording Leaving New York, aptly foreshadow the music to follow: an effervescent, ebullient explosion of jazz energy. Dana Leong is a phenomenon: a creative and eclectic cellist, a gifted melodist and composer, and a wonderfully expressive trombonist. Leong's ...
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