Jazz Articles about Darren Johnston

About Darren Johnston

Album Review

Carmen Staaf è una forza emergente della scena musicale di New York e, più in generale, del panorama jazz internazionale. Pianista originaria di Seattle--allieva di Danilo Perez--ha suonato e registrato con alcuni dei musicisti più influenti della nostra epoca. È stata ascoltata al Village Vanguard, al Blue Note, allo SFJAZZ e in numerosi festival di primo piano in tutto il mondo, tra cui Newport, Monterey, Montreux e il North Sea Jazz Festival, pur rimanendo per lungo tempo poco citata da ...

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

Carmen Staaf: Sounding Line

Read "Sounding Line" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 22, 2025

Thelonious Monk (1917 -1982) was often grouped with the bebop pianists of the late 1940s and early 1950s. But he was not bop. He was a pianistic world unto itself. Quirky, dissonant, often playful. Mary Lou Williams (1910 -1981) did not fit the bop category either. She came in before bop's advent. Her music was stylistically closer to Duke Ellington's eloquence, sass and swing. Bop aside, pianist Carmen Staaf heard a musical kinship between these two 20th-century contemporaries. ...

Radio & Podcasts

Darren Johnston, Rossi / Hess / Moran & Theo Jorgensmann

by Maurice Hogue
June 6, 2023

This episode of One Man's Jazz is a very mixed bag. There's a preview of an upcoming box set of Charles Mingus' 1970 releases for Atlantic Records, some Jimi Hendrix on tuba from Germany's Pinguin Moschner, electronica from keyboardist Elias Stemeseder and drummer Christian Lillinger, the Polish duo of saxophonist Maciej Sikala and drummer Tomek Sowinsk}, a pair from Diskonife Records (Darren Johnston & the trio of Mick Rossi, Peter Hess and Matt Moran), and much more, including a look ...

Radio & Podcasts

Darren Johnston, Jazzanova, Ezra Collective, Minino Garay & More New Releases

by Ludovico Granvassu
March 26, 2022

May the fun be with you, and the Funk of the Ezra Collective too, as well the speaking Tango of Minino Garay, the Strata records vault-digging of Jazzanova and much more!Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Ezra Collective “May the Funk Be with You" May the Funk Be with You -Single (Enter the Jungle) 0:16 Host talks 4:41 Jazzanova “Creative Musicians" Strata Records: The Sound of Detroit (Reimagined ...

Album Review

Darren Johnston: Life in Time

Read "Life in Time" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 11, 2022

Brooklyn-based trumpeter Darren Johnston traveled to Chicago in May 2021 to record Life in Time with three of his favorite musicians: saxophonist Geof Bradfield, bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Dana Hall who form their own working trio in the Windy City. The generally charming studio date encompasses ten original compositions, six by Johnston, four by Bradfield. Technically and musically, the foursome is splendid. What is missing—and it takes a tune or two to sink in—is the welcome ...

Album Review

The Flatland Quartet: Songs From The Urban Forest

Read "Songs From The Urban Forest" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 18, 2021

The members of The Flatland Quartet are not only accomplished improvisers, they are socially aware artists. Their activism permeates Songs From The Urban Forest. This is not only because the proceeds from its sale will be donated to the Sacramento Food Bank. All six interrelated pieces are simultaneously abstract and earthy, marked by a sublime balance of the cerebral and the emotive. Opening the set is “Joe Hill's Last and Final Will." It is built around the poem ...