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About Eric Alexander

153

Album Review

Eric Alexander: Summit Meeting

by David A. Orthmann
September 2, 2002

A direct descendent of competitive, no nonsense titans such as Sonny Stitt and George Coleman, Eric Alexander plays the horn with a decidedly assertive temperament, as if he always has something to prove. Summit Meeting, his fourth release for Milestone, is arguably the tenor saxophonist’s finest recording as a leader in a prolific, decade-long career. No longer a series of brilliantly executed segments, his solos flow logically from beginning to end, exhibiting calculation and a quickness of mind that match ...

128

Album Review

One For All: Live at Smoke, Volume 1

Read "Live at Smoke, Volume 1" reviewed by David A. Orthmann

by David A. Orthmann
February 1, 2002

As anyone who frequents jazz clubs will attest, there are nights that live on in memory for years after the last note fades. Aside from basic details easily recalled (personnel, tunes, arrangements, etc.), what really matters is the way the music made us feel. On these rare occasions, the sounds were so potent that, for a time, nothing else mattered and all worldly concerns yielded to the happenings on stage. In search of another incredible experience, we keep coming back ...

143

Album Review

One For All: Live at Smoke- Volume 1

Read "Live at Smoke- Volume 1" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
January 1, 2002

Growing out of a weekly jam session that drummer Joe Farnsworth used to lead at a New York club called Augie’s, the hard bop ensemble One For All now encompasses a pool of leaders who still manage to get together and cultivate the kind of musical empathy that they’ve developed over the years. After two initial albums for the Sharp Nine label, the group jumped ship to Criss Cross Jazz where the majority of the guys cut records of their ...

213

Album Review

Eric Alexander: The Second Milestone

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 2001

Let’s be honest; no Jazz reviewer can ever be completely objective because each of us has his or her favorite players, those musicians who, in our eyes, can do no wrong and whose next venture we look forward eagerly to hearing. When I was a young man (yes, I can remember that, albeit vaguely) Zoot Sims was, for me, such a paragon. In my opinion Zoot was the man, and no one (except perhaps Stan Getz) even came close. Irrational, ...

186

Album Review

Eric Alexander: The Second Milestone

by C. Andrew Hovan
June 1, 2001

If you insist on your jazz being loud and of the avant variety, then this disc will not be for you. If you’ve convinced yourself that the young guys are just revisiting the past, then this disc won’t be for you either. But, if you’re interested in serious mainstream jazz performed by some of the greatest artists of current vintage, not to mention by one of today’s leading young tenor saxophonists, you are sure to find a lot to keep ...

133

Album Review

Eric Alexander: The First Milestone

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 2001

Eric Alexander, the most fearsome young lion of them all, even looks the part on his “official” debut recording for Milestone Records — pensive, unsmiling, saxophone case in hand, primed and ready for another day of jungle warfare whose chief purpose is not so much to vanquish his musical peers as to earn their respect, something the hard–working tenor has been accomplishing with relative ease since he placed second nearly a decade ago in the Thelonious Monk Institute’s saxophone competition. ...

200

Album Review

Jim Rotondi: Excursions

Read "Excursions" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
October 1, 2000

One of the next major talents yet to be discovered by the jazz public at large, trumpeter Jim Rotondi is a dynamo full of the kind of bristling trumpet fire that distinguished such predecessors as Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw. Over the course of his first two Criss Cross dates, Introducing Jim Rotondi and Jim’s Bop Rotondi proved that he was a capable mainstream player with great promise in terms of developing his own voice. Now with Excursions he goes ...