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Jazz Articles about Dom Minasi
Meet Dom Minasi
by AAJ Staff
I currently live in: New York, NY I joined All About Jazz in: 2012 What made you decide to contribute to All About Jazz? All About Jazz is the first thing I read in the morning, there is a wealth of information and I thought as a working musician I could offer a particular point of view on topics where I have experience. How do you contribute to All About Jazz? I have a ...
Continue ReadingDom Minasi Septet: The Bird, the Girl and the Donkey II
by Eyal Hareuveni
Following the successful realization of the powerful, free jazz collective headed by Dom Minasi on The Bird, The Girl And The Donkey (Re:konstruKt, 2010), the guitarist decided to expand his collective from a quintet to a septet. He kept the same attitude: intense, muscular and fiery playing from the first second till the last, but with varied dynamics and more power. The title of the second volume, The Bird, the Girl and the Donkey II--a live recording ...
Continue ReadingWhat Is Jazz Now?
by Dom Minasi
Back in February, All About Jazz Managing Editor John Kelman asked me to develop a column based on points I made in the comment section of the article BAM or JAZZ: Why It Matters. I still feel the same way, but trumpeter Nicholas Payton's statement that jazz died in 1959 made me think, and I've been thinking about it for seven months. Why 1959? I was 15 years old and going to Birdland on a regular basis. I saw everyone ...
Continue ReadingThe Importance of Being Earnest (or What It Takes To Be A Good Teacher)
by Dom Minasi
Question: Why write an article about being good music teacher?Answer: Because there are too many bad teachers out there!For some unknown reason people who have been playing their instruments for a few years think they can teach, especially when they don't know some of the basics themselves.Through the years, I have had to teach the basics to guitar players who were playing sometimes up to six years. I have had students tell me that ...
Continue ReadingThe Grammy Awards: To Be or Not To Be?
by Dom Minasi
I very rarely watch award shows. I feel like the entertainment industry is constantly patting one another on the back. I don't understand the need to have so many of the same types of award shows. Artisans seem to have an irresistible need to be consistently told how wonderful they are and so very often. Why do I care so much? I care, because as a professional jazz musician, I feel the Grammys don't present or reflect jazz, as it ...
Continue ReadingKarl Berger / Dom Minasi: Synchronicity
by Dan Bilawsky
The two men responsible for Synchronicity are known as bold risk-takers, well-informed free spirits and beyond-the-norm sculptors of sound, and these potential epithets are rightly reflected in the music they make together. Vibraphonist/pianist/wearer-of-many-hats Karl Berger and guitarist Dom Minasi met approximately a decade before this project came to pass and, while they periodically discussed the idea of recording together and even had the chance to lay down a short, 37-minute program at one point, this is the first proper, full-length ...
Continue ReadingKarl Berger and Dom Minasi: Synchronicity
by Eyal Hareuveni
Pianist/vibraphonist Karl Berger and guitarist Dom Minasi are both forward-thinking and experienced composers, improvisers and educators, with discographies that goes back to the 1960s--including, in the case of Berger, collaborations with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Carla Bley; and, with Minasi, 1970s work with Joe McPhee and Matthew Shipp. Synchronicity's twelve freely improvised duets were recorded in 2010 at Berger's Woodstock studio. All rely on an emphatic and patient interplay that stresses the melodic and harmonic avenues ...
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