Jazz Articles about David Leon

About David Leon

Album Review

Bassist and composer Stephan Crump has rarely been interested in conventional jazz architecture. His ensembles emphasize interaction, with compositions that leave ample space for musicians to reshape the music as it unfolds. On Passerine, Crump leads a quartet featuring Kenny Warren on trumpet, David Leon on alto flute and saxophone and Ches Smith on percussion. Inspired by the ways birds construct nests, the seven compositions suggest structures assembled piece by piece, sometimes orderly, sometimes deliberately precarious, often through chamber-like passages.

Album Review

Phillip Golub: Partisan Ship

Read "Partisan Ship" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
May 31, 2026

In a lot off ways, it is a game of catch-up listening to Brooklyn pianist/improvisor/composer Phillip Golub once he kick-starts the oddly titled Partisan Ship into high gear with “Loyalty Oath," a piece of mad musical fiction that holds attention in place with its octopi rhythms and runaway melodies rushing in all at once. Partisan Ship is oddly titled because Golub, an unapologetic polymath far out on the progressive spectrum, and his juiced and jazzed up cohorts--clarinetist and ...

Album Review

Lex Korten: Canopy

by Jerome Wilson
October 13, 2025

Lex Koeten's Canopy is a project of different musical styles swirled together in a dizzying stew. It sounds discordant on first listen but ultimately this collection of jumpy prog freakouts, delicate ballads and misty ambience hangs together as parts of the same whole. Korten creates all this out of a simple lineup of keyboards, voice, alto sax, guitar, and drums. The opening “Oasis Walking" feels like the work of an adventurous singer-songwriter like Sarah McLaughlin or Beth Orton ...

Album Review

Peter Lenz: Breathe

Read "Breathe" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
September 10, 2025

Dopo aver espresso ottime doti di strumentista e leader col quintetto Silent Flow e col quartetto Lithium, il batterista austriaco debutta con successo nel campo dell'orchestrazione, scegliendo di operare con tre differenti organici: una big band di 17 elementi (nei brani “Enclouded" ed “Eleanor"), una big band ampliata a un quartetto d'archi (in “Between Lines" e “Von Inneren Grenzen") ed un ensemble da camera comprendente quartetto d'archi, tre fiati, contrabbasso e batteria (in “Breathe") Volendo dirigere personalmente gli ...

Album Review

Adam O'Farrill: For These Streets

Read "For These Streets" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
June 11, 2025

With For These Streets, trumpeter and composer Adam O'Farrill presents a sharply contoured, richly imagined statement for mid-sized band--his most complete vision to date. Drawing on an eclectic range of influences, from 1930s-era music, literature and film to the rhythms of contemporary urban life, O'Farrill leads a wily crew of his peers through a program that moves with narrative cohesion. Though not a suite in the formal sense, the album unfolds like one, the pieces linked by emotional throughlines and ...

Album Review

Adam O'Farrill: For These Streets

Read "For These Streets" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 10, 2025

Trumpeter and composer Adam O'Farrill distills a heady mix of inspirations into For These Streets, the debut release from his new octet. Drawing on music, literature and the ambiance of the 1930s, the album reflects his immersion in the era--Henry Miller's prose, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, and the sonic worlds of Stravinsky, Ravel, Carlos Chávez and Kurt Weill. None of this background is necessary to appreciate the music, nor is it mentioned in the packaging. But knowing it adds a ...

Album Review

Adam O'Farrill: For These Streets

Read "For These Streets" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
May 19, 2025

Con questo nuovo disco Adam O'Farrill scrive una delle pagine più avvincenti del 2025, confermando di non essere solo un magistrale trombettista ma un compositore d'alto spessore anche per medio organico. Nei quattro album col quartetto Stranger Days, ha dimostrato di saper integrare con coerenza le forme del post bop degli anni sessanta con gli sviluppi delle avanguardie successive e in questo ottetto stellare prosegue, ampliando lo spettro armonico e timbrico con l'uso di vibrafono (Patricia Brennan), chitarra ...