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Jazz Articles about George Colligan
About George Colligan
Instrument: Multi-instrumentalist
Machado Mijiga: Gradient
by Paul Rauch
Machado Mijiga is a Portland born and raised multi- instrumentalist, producer, audio engineer and educator, still based in his city of origin. His 2022 release, Gradient, turns his focus to his creative strengths as a drummer and composer, taking in tunes written over the course of the past decade. Mijiga has mild synesthesia, hearing sounds as colors, shapes or more specifically, colors seen through the spectrum, or color groups. This is similar to the recently passed pianist, Jessica Williams, who ...
Continue ReadingNicole McCabe: Introducing Nicole McCabe
by Paul Rauch
If you were a young and talented jazz musician in Portland, Oregon, you would make yourself highly visible on the local scene to gain invaluable experience playing with the best the city had to offer. In addition to your more formal studies, you would extend your musical outreach from post-bop modernism to the avant-garde. Most importantly, you would constantly be rubbing musical shoulders with the elders who have mentored you to the point of having professional aspirations. This ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Colligan: More Powerful
by Roger Farbey
Pianist George Colligan's twenty eighth album as leader sees him joined by long-time colleague Rudy Royston on drums, bassist Linda May Han Oh and newcomer Nicole Glover, Colligan's former student at Portland, on reeds. Colligan has a long career in jazz and, in addition to teaching at Portland State University where he's the Jazz Area Coordinator, he has collaborated with the likes of Jack DeJohnette, Larry Grenadier, Don Byron and Cassandra Wilson. This set of sprightly numbers all ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Colligan: The Endless Mysteries
by John Kelman
While music fans often think of the artists they love as gifted people whose lives are consumed by the pursuit of their art, all-too-often they ignore equally important, if seemingly more mundane, needs: making a living, perhaps having a family...things to which most people aspire. With music sales on the decline, most musicians pay the rent by touring and, in some cases, teaching, but for those who've failed to achieve greater recognition, that needn't imply they're anything less than top-tier. ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Colligan: Isolation
by AAJ Italy Staff
Isolation. Isolamento. Quello ispirato a George Colligan da un corso d'insegnamento tenuto in un vecchio castello danese nei paraggi di Copenhagen. Ma anche l'isolamento dell'artista, solo di fronte allo strumento, i suoi pensieri, la sua musica. La musica per l'appunto. Tra le possibili scelte su come affrontare un piano solo Colligan ha optato per la più rischiosa, quella di eseguire composizioni originali, nessuno standard sul quale fare sfoggio delle proprie abilità tecniche, nessun traditional per fare breccia nel cuore del ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Colligan: Come Together
by Edward Blanco
Pianist/composer/educator George Colligan decided to record Come Together after a successful ten-day tour of Japan in October 2008. Receiving an invitation for 2009, the hope was to return with a document of the trio's music. With much in-demand bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Donald Edwards, Colligan presents slices of funk, blues, bebop, fusion and light classical-tinged ballads, all neatly packaged and coming together superbly. Except for the opening title piece and oft-recorded standard, “The Shadow of Your Smile," the remaining ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Colligan: Come Together
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Mathematically, it would be well nigh impossible to count the multitude of sensory organs and multiplicity of fingers (and thumbs) at work in pianist George Colligan on Come Together. Sometimes they work in unison, while at other times quite independent of each other, to produce daring polytonality. In a voice as charismatic as an evangelist at a convention, Colligan often sounds blasé and forthright; but there are times, when the music calls for it; that he turns so soft and ...
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