Jazz Articles about Denny Zeitlin

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Denny Zeitlin: Labyrinth

by Raul d'Gama Rose
July 9, 2011

To Denny Zeitlin the piano is several instruments rolled into one. It is a percussion instrument, struck by fingers and all manner of objets d'art. Together with his feet, which depress the pedals as if they were instrumental peripherals in themselves, Zeitlin makes masterful use of them to split, carve, bend and hang notes. Zeitlin might also make the piano sound like a lute or a harp. And then there are his arms and fingers, that make oceanic use of ...

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Denny Zeitlin: Nothing Halfway

by Dan McClenaghan
July 19, 2010

San Francisco-based jazz pianist Denny Zeitlin--aka Dr. Dennis Zeitlin, Psychiatrist--boasts a music career that spans more than fifty years. He began, at a tender young age, playing professionally in the early fifties in his home town of Chicago. He was, very early in his life, interested in the fields of medicine and music, and he has been able to navigate career paths in both disciplines with great success.He has recorded more than thirty albums, beginning with a series ...

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Denny Zeitlin: Precipice: Solo Piano Concert

by Raul d'Gama Rose
June 27, 2010

The singular mission of Denny Zeitlin continues with Precipice, the recorded document of a concert in January, 2008 at Ralston Hall, Santa Barbara, California. The experience is at once predictably exquisite as it creates a state of a type of suspended animation, floating with utter weightless abandon, as composer and pianist, Zeitlin flies over the edge of its proverbial cliff seduced by the thunderous cascade of music. This is how the music builds up to that frenetic quantum energy by ...

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Denny Zeitlin: Precipice

by Dan McClenaghan
May 23, 2010

The recorded live format seems to suit pianist Denny Zeitlin, who is certainly the only top tier jazz pianist who is also a practicing psychiatrist. His In Concert (Sunnyside Records, 2009), with his trio featuring bassist Buster Williams and drummer Matt Wilson, was filled with beautiful moments of surrender and improvisational élan, and stunningly spontaneous displays of technical proficiency. His follow-up, Precipice, a solo piano outing, finds the pianist again live in concert, recorded at Ralston Hall in 2008, in ...

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Denny Zeitlin's Inhabiting a Parallel Universe

by Raul d'Gama Rose
June 25, 2009

The artist is alone. Not woefully or desperately alone, but more like willfully alone and enraptured... He empties his head of thought to make way for the flow of air. And in the air, notes of varying pitch and character. They bring their sound alone... then sometimes strung together like necklaces of varying beads--whole ones, halves and quarters... eights... sixteenths... a myriad... The artist feels good to be alone, emptied of all thought now he is prepared for the waves ...

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Denny Zeitlin: The Doctor Is Definitely In!

by Tom Greenland
April 4, 2009

Denny Zeitlin Denny Zeitlin: The Columbia Trio Sessions Mosaic Select 2009 Denny Zeitlin Trio Denny Zeitlin Trio/In Concert Sunnyside 2009

“The doctor is definitely in!" announced Todd Barkan last month at Dizzy's Club, hailing the East Coast return of pianist Denny Zeitlin for a two-night stand. Touring in support of two ...

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Denny Zeitlin

by Ken Dryden
March 15, 2009

For over four decades, Denny Zeitlin has juggled practicing psychiatry, teaching in a medical school, playing jazz piano, composing, arranging, touring and pursuing a number of hobbies. Zeitlin was already playing professionally in high school, graduated Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Illinois, then entered Johns Hopkins Medical School. Zeitlin spent his evenings studying, though he enjoyed taking a break by playing jazz in a Baltimore club a couple of times a week, with Gary Bartz, Billy Hart and ...