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Maria Schneider: Data Lords
by Doug Hall
Maria Schneider, jazz pianist, orchestral composer and 2019 NEA Jazz Master, has just released a new double-album, Data Lords (artistShare, 2020), which creates poignant musical imagery about our data-driven world. Schneider, who has been an active advocate for musicians' rights and copyright, has followed-on this impact, citing “big data" companies as manipulators of music, culture and privacy. This collection of uniquely and emotionally rendered original compositions addresses the conflicting relationships between the digital and natural worlds, featuring Schneider's orchestra of ...
Continue ReadingMaria Schneider Orchestra: Data Lords
by Karl Ackermann
The skillfully designed cover art tells part of the story; a leaf--half as nature intended--the remainder, a circuit board doppelganger. The pastoral soundscapes associated with the music of Grammy-winning composer/bandleader Maria Schneider belie her activist alter-ego. An outspoken critic of copyright protections, prejudicial revenue schemes and the abuses of “big data," Schneider has authored op-eds and testified before the US Congress. She ventures onto unfamiliar terrain, coalescing her passions on a masterwork double album, Data Lords. The two ...
Continue ReadingFrank Kimbrough: Monk's Dreams: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk
by Angelo Leonardi
Fino a che punto può spingersi la rilettura del songbook monkiano senza alterare l'estetica e la profondità emotiva del suo autore? Le rivisitazioni degli ultimi decenni hanno privilegiato l'esaltazione dei suoi tratti asimmetrici (le melodie sghembe, i conflitti ritmici, le armonie dissonanti) usando quei brani come pretesto per esplorazioni d'avanguardia. Quando si è usato quel repertorio in chiave mainstream (come palestra per sequenze d'assoli sulle armonie) se n'è svuotata la specificità, l'essenza profonda. Molti hanno usato l'uno ...
Continue ReadingMark Corroto's Top Ten (Ok Fifteen) of 2018
by Mark Corroto
Another trip around the sun. In the AllAboutJazz universe, the stars were especially bright this year. Which is a good thing, unless you are like me, trying to pare down a huge list of favorites to just ten. At that task, I've failed once again. So here are my 15 favorite recordings of 2018 in no particular order. Frank Kimbrough Monk's Dreams: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk Sunnyside Records Jamie ...
Continue ReadingFrank Kimbrough: Monk's Dreams: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk
by Mark Sullivan
There were scores of tributes the legendary pianist and composer Thelonious Monk in 2017, the centennial of his birth. But only guitarist Miles Okazaki's six- volume solo guitar album Work: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Monk (Self Produced, 2018) gave a clear presentation of all seventy of Monk's compositions. Pianist Frank Kimbrough's similarly comprehensive set is riskier in some ways, as the grouping of jazz quartet with a horn as the lead instrument (usually saxophone) is the one that Monk ...
Continue ReadingFrank Kimbrough: Monk's Dreams: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk
by Victor L. Schermer
Thelonious Monk, though controversial in his time, was a brilliant, innovative pianist and composer with a unique way of conceiving the music that was yet remarkably simpatico with standard forms. Many of his compositions (they are much more than “tunes," though I'll use that word here as shorthand) have become a regular part of the jazz repertoire, and it is only natural that around the 2017 centennial celebration of Monk's birth, there would be heightened interest in his music.
Continue ReadingFrank Kimbrough: Solstice
by Budd Kopman
Pianist Frank Kimbrough's latest offering, Solstice on the Pirouet label, is a joy from beginning to end. Pirouet is the home of some other fine piano trios, including those of Marc Copland (see Some Love Songs, Modinha, Voices and Night Whispers). Copland, arguably working from the Bill Evans aesthetic is, of course, quite different than Kimbrough, who resides much more within the aesthetic of Paul Bley, who worked with and influenced many players including Satoko Fujii ...
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