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Jazz Articles about David Hazeltine
Louis Hayes: Crisis
by Jack Bowers
Louis Hayes--who has been a force in jazz drumming for more than sixty years, anchoring legendary groups led by Horace Silver, Cannonball Adderley, Oscar Peterson, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, among others--has assembled a quintet of New York City's finest for Crisis, wherein he pays musical tribute to some of his jazz colleagues, past and present, including Freddie Hubbard, Joe Farrell, Lee Morgan, Bobby Hutcherson and two members of his working unit, vibraphonist Steve Nelson and bassist Dezron Douglas.
Continue ReadingCory Weeds Quartet: Day By Day
by Jack Bowers
At a time when classic jazz seems fractured and flying off in a hundred or more separate directions, it is comforting to encounter sessions like this one, a superlative quartet date led by alto saxophonist and Renaissance man Cory Weeds, and featuring David Hazeltine, one of the more proficient and enterprising pianists on the scene. Day by Day, their second recording together, awakens memories of a bygone era when giants ruled the jazz landscape, trail-blazers whose music remains as fresh ...
Continue ReadingCory Weeds: Day By Day
by Pierre Giroux
As we struggle though this period of self-isolation caused by the 2020 global health pandemic, along comes Cory Weeds with a charming new quartet release anchored by pianist David Hazeltine and called quite fittingly Day By Day. Little did the participants realize when the recording was undertaken in August 2019, that most people would be living day by day, looking forward to having a world-wide nightmare come to an end. In this ten track set, most of the ...
Continue ReadingEric Alexander: With Strings
by Jack Bowers
To paraphrase Cole Porter: “Bird did it, Chet did it... even many vocalists I bet did it..." And now tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander did it--recorded an album with strings, that is. This represents quite a departure for Alexander who is widely known as one of the more emotive and resourceful improvisers on the scene; but so it was too for Charlie Parker, the foremost architect and unquestioned sovereign of the bop movement who was the first post-Swing Era superstar to ...
Continue ReadingDavid Hazeltine: The Time Is Now
by David A. Orthmann
David Hazeltine's thirty-fourth date as a leader juxtaposes his strengths as a composer, interpreter of standard material, improviser, as well as the capacity to converse and interact with his peers. There's something magical about the ways in which the pianist employs these skills, avoiding emphasizing one at the expense of the others, and in doing so fashioning tracks that are balanced, agreeable, incisive, and substantive. It's fascinating to consistently hear him chart a middle course, melding emotion and intellect while ...
Continue ReadingJohn Swana: Bright Moments
by Victor L. Schermer
Simply put, this album is so listenable and stood out so noticeably among the many CDs I've been spinning for myself recently, that I thought All About Jazz readers ought to know about it. I first heard then trumpeter John Swana a decade or more ago when he jammed at pianist Tom Lawton's memorable long-term gig with the late great bassist Al Stauffer at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. I was awestruck by Swana's clarity, sustained non-vibrato tone, and ...
Continue ReadingJim Rotondi: Dark Blue
by C. Andrew Hovan
Back in 1997 when Introducing Jim Rotondi announced that a major new trumpeter star was on the ascent, few could have predicted how important and prolific Rotondi would become to the mainstream landscape. A foremost stylist in the lineage of Freddie Hubbard and Wood Shaw, Rotondi quickly proved he had absorbed the legacy, only to jettison imitation in favor of innovation. Working regularly with his own groups and the hard bop ensemble One For All, Rotondi was a major force ...
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