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About Don Byron

509

Interview

My Conversation with Don Byron

by AAJ Staff
November 5, 2004

Boy, this interview sure was fun. I find most writers tend to take themselves too seriously too often and Don Byron can sense that and jumps all over it. I have no problem admitting that Byron worked me over pretty damn good. Midway through our half hour conversation, I could feel the air being sucked out of the room. But I re-buckled my belt and double knotted my laces and went back in and got one heck of classic conversation ...

228

Album Review

Don Byron: Ivey-Divey

Read "Ivey-Divey" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
October 12, 2004

Don Byron's virtuosic clarinet technique allows him to stretch his limits this way and that. With piano and drums, he opens his program by setting the pace for adventure. With a glimpse of familiar melody here and a peek at remembered themes there, the clarinetist launches an improvisational tirade. Both his clarinet and bass clarinet enable him to demonstrate the capacity that jazz holds for wild and wooly adventures. Jason Moran and Jack DeJohnette form a cohesive partnership with Byron ...

418

Album Review

Don Byron: Ivey-Divey

by AAJ Staff
October 8, 2004

The expression “ivey-divey," like so many expressions in the jazz world, comes from Lester Young. It was Pres' term for permanent sadness, for living in the world through the blues, life with perpetual blues feeling. The album Ivey-Divey is Don Byron's look at Pres' great '46 trio session with Nat Cole and Buddy Rich. Byron's album, with pianist Jason Moran and drummer Jack DeJohnette, is not a recreation, nor is it a mere modernization or deconstruction of the Lester Young ...

409

Album Review

Don Byron: Ivey-Divey

Read "Ivey-Divey" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
September 20, 2004

Clarinetist Don Byron has fashioned a career something akin to a great jazz history lesson. With albums like Plays the Music of Mickey Katz and Bug Music , he demonstrated some of its traditional roots, whereas Music for Six Musicians and You are #6 explored the Latin and Afro-Cuban legacies. Tuskegee Experiments and the frighteningly good live record No Vibe Zone demonstrated where jazz might be going, at least in one person's view. Now, with Ivey-Divey , Byron consolidates it ...

180

Album Review

Don Byron: Ivey-Divey

by Ty Cumbie
September 18, 2004

Jazz is deep into a critical phase, through which all mature art forms must pass--look out rock, your time is coming!--the point at which the music either changes or dies, becoming something different or a dusty museum piece. All who choose to enter the field at this time face this challenge, whether they know it or not (especially if they hope to get signed to Blue Note and sell a few records). A player/composer as smart as Don Byron must ...

223

Album Review

Don Byron: You Are #6: More Music for Six Musicians

Read "You Are #6: More Music for Six Musicians" reviewed by AAJ Staff

by AAJ Staff
November 1, 2001

“I am not a number. I am a free man," insists Patrick McGoohan's character on the late '60s British television series, The Prisoner. He responds to his captors' dictum, “You are Number Six," regarding his new identity. '80s heavy metal icons Iron Maiden ingeniously quote these lines as the introduction to their classic tune of the same name, “The Prisoner". Jazz clarinetist Don Byron recycles the concept, adopting this sentence from the program as the title of his latest album, ...

171

Album Review

Don Byron: You Are #6: More Music for Six Musicians

by AAJ Staff
November 1, 2001

"I am not a number. I am a free man," insists Patrick McGoohan's character on the late '60s British television series, The Prisoner. He responds to his captors' dictum, “You are Number Six," regarding his new identity. '80s heavy metal icons Iron Maiden ingeniously quote these lines as the introduction to their classic tune of the same name, “The Prisoner". Jazz clarinetist Don Byron recycles the concept, adopting this sentence from the program as the title of his latest album, ...