Jazz Articles about Either/Orchestra

Either/Orchestra: Ethiopiques 20: Live in Addis

by Jerry D'Souza
November 19, 2005

In January 2004, the Either/Orchestra went to Ethiopia to play at the Ethiopian Music Festival. The band has always been flexible in its vision, and so it comes as no surprise that the group decided to play Ethiopian music (the musicians were already familiar with it, having recorded “The Ethiopian Suite on More Beautiful Than Death). A natural progression was to invite Ethiopian musicians to join the group as guests. And so they got Gétatchèw Mèkurya, Mulatu Astatqé, Tsèdènia Gèbrè-Marqos, ...

The Perfect Jazz Audience on Record... From Ethiopia

by Norman Weinstein
November 15, 2005

Not to add to the many rave reviews that have been justly offered on this site, I want to concentrate on just two facets of this completely remarkable recording. Worthy of this narrow a focus is “Shellela," a nearly eight minute “concerto" for the Ethiopian saxophonist Getachew Mekurya and the Either/Orchestra, and the audience response heard during this particular performance. An appalling number of live jazz recordings showcase inattentive audiences, some boorishly so, as the recent box ...

Either/Orchestra: Ethiopiques 20: Live in Addis

by Budd Kopman
November 1, 2005

Live in Addis, the latest release by the Either/Orchestra, provides a superb example of the way Russ Gershon, E/O's founder and main composer/arranger, keeps the band fresh and exciting by always moving into new territory and never standing still. The path that led to this historic concert has already been described in these pages, but the more important thing is how Ethiopian popular music is refracted through the peculiar lens of Gershon and company to produce something ...

Either/Orchestra: Ethiopiques 20: Live In Addis

by Brian P. Lonergan
October 22, 2005

A horn lover's paradise exists and it is Addis Ababa. At least, the Ethiopian capital was for one night in January 2004, when the American Either/Orchestra, a proponent of “Ethio-jazz, played a rousing concert at the city's third annual music festival. The fortunate result of that night, the two-CD Live in Addis, is the 20th volume of Ethiopiques, a series of albums on Buda Musique dedicated to preserving and promoting Ethiopia's rich musical heritage. The music on ...

Either/Orchestra: Ethiopiques 20: Live in Addis

by Paul Olson
October 9, 2005

Here's to the wonders of recorded music and cultural exchange. Either/Orchestra leader Russ Gershon's encounter with the Blue Silver label's Ethiopian Groove album, a compilation of the seminal, brass-packed Ethiopian jazz/pop of the 1970s, led him to arrange some of its pieces as “The Ethiopian Suite. They were recorded by the E/O for the 1999 album More Beautiful Than Death and eventually were heard by some of the songs' composers, as well as Buda Musique label curator Francis Falceto.

That ...

Either /Orchestra at the National Theatre in Kampala

by Philip Songa
January 21, 2004

If ever there was any doubt that music is a universal language then the combination of eight Americans, one Dominican Republican, one guy from Surinam and one Ugandan playing music from Ethiopia in Uganda in moving style ought to remove the last vestiges of such doubt. That is exactly the kind of reassurance that was given at the National Theatre on the night of Monday 19 January 2004.

The 10-man Either/Orchestra led by the inimitable Russ Gershon (reminds one of ...

Either/Orchestra: Neo-Modernism

by Dan McClenaghan
September 25, 2003

It's puzzle why the ten man Either/Orchestra, under the leadership of saxophonist Russ Gershon, is still something of an underground outfit. They've been through fifteen years and eight albums, the spawning of careers of several first rate jazz men, including John Medeski and Charlie Kohlhase, and scores of great live performances. The groups's last two CDs, More Beautiful than Death and Afro-Cubism, were progressive jewels – African and Latin rhythms with dark undercurrents, dense arrangements that demand repeat ...