Jazz Articles about George Colligan

About George Colligan

Live Review

George Colligan Quartet At Magy's Farm

by Ian Patterson
May 16, 2024

George Colligan Quartet Magy's Farm Dromara, N. Ireland May 8, 2024 Ordinarily the words George Colligan and Dromara would not belong in the same sentence. Colligan is one of the world's great modern jazz pianists. Dromara is a small village and sparsely populated townland in the County Down hills that bleed into the Mourne Mountains. Since the early '90s, Colligan has worked with heavyweights of the genre such as Lee Konitz, Benny ...

Live Review

George Colligan Quartet at Chris’ Jazz Café

by Victor L. Schermer
April 3, 2024

George Colligan Quartet Chris' Jazz Café Philadelphia. PA March 29, 2024 Chris Hove of All About Jazz once wrote that pianist and multi-instrumentalist George Colligan is “one of the best kept secrets in jazz." It's not clear why he is such a secret, since. as saxophonist Don Braden once said, “As a creative artist, he's really up there... In terms of technique, knowledge of music and improvisational creativity, there aren't a ...

Liner Notes

George Colligan: Ultimatum

by C. Andrew Hovan
February 21, 2023

Unlike classical music, where so much of the performance is based on an authentic interpretation of the material, jazz has always been more about inventiveness and the musician's quest to find an original voice. Additionally, some of the most innovative artists in the genre have been known not only for their instrumental prowess, but also for great bodies of work that have substantially contributed to the jazz annals. Men like Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Thad Jones, to name only ...

Album Review

Machado Mijiga: Gradient

by Paul Rauch
May 17, 2022

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 ...

Album Review

Nicole McCabe: Introducing Nicole McCabe

Read "Introducing Nicole McCabe" reviewed by Paul Rauch

by Paul Rauch
January 10, 2021

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 ...

Album Review

George Colligan: More Powerful

Read "More Powerful" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
July 6, 2017

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 ...

Extended Analysis

George Colligan: The Endless Mysteries

by John Kelman
January 14, 2014

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. ...