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David Weiss and Point of Departure: Snuck In
by Raul d'Gama Rose
The term “hipster," although appropriated to everyday use from slang and rarely used today, has a special connotation in music--especially the jazz idiom. It is a dusky, almost nocturnal word, and it has made way for new epithets that stream from rap and hip-hop, but no matter what it describes, it's always someone with certain, unmistakable contemporariness. Having completely absorbed the history of his/her art, an artist begins to live in a novel way, personifying it with a swaggering attitude. ...
Continue ReadingDavid Weiss & Point of Departure: Snuck In
by Mark F. Turner
A keeper of the flame, but a resolute practitioner of forward thinking music, David Weiss has been active for more than twenty years in New York. His horn swings with élan, representing modern post-bop trumpeting whether playing in Charles Tolliver's Big Band, producing other recordings (Robert Glasper, Jeremy Pelt and Marcus Strickland), or at the helm of firebrands such as (Myron Walden, Jimmy Greene, and Dwayne Burno) in his New Jazz Composers Octet. Weiss is deep in this game and ...
Continue ReadingThe Music of Art Blakey: 90th Birthday Celebration at the Iridium, NYC
by Dave Kaufman
Golden Boy: The Music of Art Blakey--90th Birthday Celebration David Weiss and 11 Musicians The Iridium Jazz Club New York, New York December 5, 2009
The great drummer and long-standing band leader Art Blakey would have celebrated his 90th birthday this past October. In honor of that event, trumpeter, composer and arranger David Weiss assembled a cast of excellent young and not so young musicians to pay tribute to the great ...
Continue ReadingNew Jazz Composers Octet: The Turning Gate
by Hrayr Attarian
Intricate compositions often provide the best substrate for complex and satisfying improvisation. This holds true for the New Jazz Composer's Octet's The Turning Gate, which includes five short compositions and one long suite made up of six movements. Each piece serves as a vehicle for group interplay and interpretation, and as a platform for one or two of the musicians to exhibit their improvisational skills during individual solos. The six-movement “Faith Suite" (the last two movements appear ...
Continue ReadingDavid Weiss: Writin', Arrangin' and Playin'
by R.J. DeLuke
David Weiss has been on the New York scene for a while now, writing and arranging, producing albums, organizing an outstanding octet. He's known for all that. He also plays the trumpet. Quite well, in fact. Although he's played with the likes of Jaki Byard, Frank Foster, Craig Handy, Christian McBride, Jimmy Heath and a great many others, people may come to know this more via a new group the ever-busy Weiss has put together. For Weiss, its ...
Continue ReadingNew Jazz Composers Octet: The Turning Gate
by Greg Camphire
From the first track on The Turning Gate, it's obvious that the New Jazz Composers Octet has spent considerable quality time together since their founding in 1996. The sheer number of hours spent writing, arranging, and playing material has strengthened this fresh ensemble into a superior example of jazz excellence. With each member working at the top of their game, the NJCO balances cohesion and freedom to create a listening experience that is always satisfying and often transcendent. ...
Continue ReadingNew Jazz Composers Octet: The Turning Gate
by J Hunter
Good support players can add color and depth to the vision of almost any artist; the right supporting cast can help a leader move in innumerable creative directions--witness the many phases of Dave Douglas. But what if a support player has a vision to share with the world? That was trumpeter David Weiss' motivation for founding the New Jazz Composer's Octet in 1999. The Turning Gate should make liner note readers--and, hopefully, everybody else--sit up and take notice.
Although NJCO ...
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