Jazz Articles about Dave Ballou

About Dave Ballou

Album Review

Dusk was only the beginning to this part of the story...I cannot listen to Andrew Hill’s new big band recording without thinking of him and his band as a relatively well-behaved Sam Rivers and the Rivbea Big Band. Of course, that horribly shortchanges the 65 year-old Chicago native who’s Palmetto debut, Dusk, was considered by many critics as the best jazz recording on the year. Add to that that Blue Note’s Alfred Lion considered Hill his last great ...

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Album Review

Andrew Hill: A Beautiful Day

Read "A Beautiful Day" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 2002

"There is plenty going on," designated cheerleader Stanley Crouch informs the reader, on composer / pianist Andrew Hill's latest album, A Beautiful Day, which showcases Hill's sixteen-piece big band in a concert performance last January at New York's famed Birdland nightclub. “With a vision given to great plasticity," Crouch writes, “[Hill] has found his own ways to reinterpret 4/4 swing, the blues, the romantic or meditative ballad, and the Afro-Hispanic rhythms that have almost invariably connected one generation of Jazz ...

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Album Review

Andrew Hill: A Beautiful Day

Read "A Beautiful Day" reviewed by Jon Wagner

by Jon Wagner
August 1, 2002

Sometimes a live recording captures the dynamism and vibe of a band that's really “on." In ideal situations, the musical energy is obvious right off the bat, continues throughout the set, and winds up on a disc. The listener thinks: “Man, I would love to have been at that gig." Andrew Hill's new release A Beautiful Day is one of those recordings. Hill is a pianist who's been around for a long time and played in many different ...

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Album Review

Dave Ballou: Volition

by C. Andrew Hovan
August 1, 2000

In his liner notes to this, the second date as a leader from trumpeter Dave Ballou, writer Mark Gardner sagaciously mentions Tim Hagan, John Swana, and Tom Williams among the talented crew of trumpeters who emerged during the early ‘90s. Of course, Ballou also fits into this group and each of these four men have in common the fact that their names are not more widely known. Pushing the envelope much in the same way that Dave Douglas has been ...

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Album Review

Dave Ballou: Amongst Ourselves

by C. Michael Bailey
January 1, 2000

Free-Garde. Free Jazz and Avant-garde were the same evolutionary answer to Bebop that Bebop was to Swing. Both movements represented a loosening of the previous genre’s harmonic constraints, exploring the near accepted and the taboo. To our ears today, the sound of early Ornette Coleman’s (pre- Free Jazz ) Atlantic recordings does not sound so strange. Miles Davis’ great ‘60s quintet went a long way to opening the ears of a jazz listening public. It was these prodromal influences that ...

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Album Review

Dave Ballou: Amongst Ourselves

by C. Michael Bailey
January 1, 2000

Free-Garde. Free jazz and avant-garde styles were the same evolutionary answer to bebop that bebop was to swing. Both movements represented a loosening of the previous genre's harmonic constraints, exploring the near accepted and the taboo. To our ears today, the sound of early Ornette Coleman's (pre-Free Jazz) Atlantic recordings does not sound so strange. Miles Davis' great '60s quintet went a long way to opening the ears of a jazz listening public. It was these prodromal influences that make ...

142

Album Review

Dave Ballou: Amongst Ourselves

by C. Andrew Hovan
October 1, 1999

While it may be unfair to the musicians involved to make comparisons to others, it often aids in better defining a chosen player's given point of departure. With that said, let it be known that trumpeter Dave Ballou is a remarkable new discovery whose playing falls in the same general orbit of such forward-thinking men as Tim Hagans and Dave Douglas. Ballou, a New England resident and jazz educator, has played with many name artists including Maria Schneider, Duke Robillard, ...