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Jazz Articles about Dave Ballou

8
Album Review

The MacroQuarktet: The Complete Night: Live At The Stone NYC

Read "The Complete Night: Live At The Stone NYC" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Listening to The MacroQuarktet calls to mind comedians Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters. Did they warm up before an evening of improvisational comedy? Once on stage or a TV talk show, instantaneously they were 'on,' firing a superabundance of thoughts, jokes, impressions, etc at their audience. It is the same for the two improvised music sets by this 'on' quartet. Recorded in 2007 and originally released as a single disc on Herb Robertson's Ruby Flower Records label as ...

10
Album Review

Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Entity

Read "Entity" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


As she did in 2019, pianist/composer Satoko Fujii—an artist at home in many formations—opens the new decade with an orchestra recording. Entity, from Fujii's Orchestra New York, is the eleventh release from the ensemble that has remained largely intact for almost twenty-three years. It is an all-star collective that includes saxophonists Oscar Noriega, Ellery Eskelin and Tony Malaby, trumpeters Natsuki Tamura and Herb Robertson, guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Ches Smith. Entity has its moments of tranquility but ...

1
Album Review

Dave Ballou: The Windup

Read "The Windup" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


Impegnato sia sul versante del jazz che della musica classica e barocca, Dave Ballou sfoggia un timbro pulito e cristallino, un fraseggio impeccabile. Nell'ambito afroamericano il suo lavoro ha spostato volentieri le proprie coordinate, passando dal moderno mainstream allo scandaglio dell'improvvisazione libera e della composizione aperta. Nel periodo a cavallo tra i nostri due secoli, Ballou ha pubblicato numerosi lavori per l'etichetta SteepleChase, che conosciamo per la linea tradizionalista, pur con qualche attenzione verso alcuni grandi sperimentatori, tra cui Paul ...

85
Album Review

Dave Ballou & BeepHonk: The Windup

Read "The Windup" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Highly regarded trumpeter Dave Ballou and his band recorded this outing live at the Baltimore venue The Windup Space, where bassist Adam Hopkins organized weekly concerts in 2011. With its debut, the quartet combines briefly stated structural components with hearty doses of improvisation, featuring embryonic guitar hero, Washington D.C. native Anthony Pirog (Janel & Anthony, The Messthetics), as drummer Mike Kuhl handles the asymmetrical pulses and swelling breakouts. The album captures the musicians performing three extended works. Pirog's ...

1
Album Review

Dave Ballou: Quadrants (for solo trumpet)

Read "Quadrants (for solo trumpet)" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Dave Ballou è un trombettista di cinquantacinque anni (il 22 aprile) del Rhode Island con all'attivo, a partire dal 1997, undici album a suo nome con a fianco musicisti del calibro di Michael Formanek, Cameron Brown, Tony Malaby, Randy Peterson, Drew Gress e svariati altri, nonché incisioni a firma dello stesso Formanek (il bellissimo The Distance, ECM del 2016), Satoko Fujii, Dave Liebman e il nostro Andrea Centazzo (diversi a testa), e ancora Gunther Schuller, Andrew Hill, Maria Schneider (Allégresse) ...

Album Review

Dave Ballou: Solo Trumpet

Read "Solo Trumpet" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


Dave Ballou si inserisce in modo del tutto personale in quel filone di trombettisti che indaga il proprio strumento in senso lato, ne trae sonorità inedite attraverso lo studio di articolazioni e procedure peculiari, ne cerca un ampliamento del vocabolario e delle espressività. Un filone che, in senso cronologico, ha origine con Bill Dixon, passa per Leo Smith e trova un culmine altamente significativo nel lavoro di Herb Robertson. Altri musicisti delle generazioni successive hanno percorso questa ...

Album Review

Mario Pavone: Arc Suite t/pi t/po

Read "Arc Suite t/pi t/po" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff


L'incisione di questo nuovo splendido gruppo celebra al meglio i settant'anni di Mario Pavone, uno dei contrabbassisti chiave degli ultimi tre decenni d'avanguardia: lo abbiamo visto collaborare a lungo nelle formazioni e nei progetti di Paul Bley, Bill Dixon, Anthony Braxton, Marty Ehlrich e costituire, negli anni novanta, un proficuo sodalizio con Thomas Chapin. I suoi gruppi attuali (come i quartetti Totem e ARC o il Tenor Trio) includono nomi significativi del jazz più avanzato come il sassofonista Tony Malaby, ...


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