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About George Schuller
Michael Musillami Trio: Block Party
by Troy Dostert
A relentlessly active and inventive guitarist whose first recordings date back to the '80s, Michael Musillami began to hit his stride in the '90s alongside veterans of the New York downtown scene such as bassist Mario Pavone, drummer Michael Sarin and saxophonist Thomas Chapin. But one of his foremost partnerships took shape in the early 2000s, when he first teamed with bassist Joe Fonda and drummer George Schuller, themselves long-standing veterans of creative jazz. Twenty years and ten albums later, ...
Continue ReadingDrummer George Schuller Talks about Lee Konitz
by S.G Provizer
George Schuller performed as percussionist with the recently deceased saxophonist Lee Konitz on and off since 1992. I covered one of their last Boston concerts here. George has lived in Brooklyn since 1992 but is well-known in Boston. His father, Gunther Schuller, was a composer and musician of note and served as President of the New England Conservatory of Music from 1967-1977 and his brother Ed Schuller is an accomplished bassist. George is co-founder of the ensemble Orange Then Blue, ...
Continue ReadingKatie Bull: All Hot Bodies Radiate
by Franz A. Matzner
A raucous concoction, Katie Bull's All Hot Bodies Radiate bursts with energy, its verbal and musical contortions devoted to a deceptively cacophonous mix of levity, seriousness, playfulness, and avant abstractions. Artfully balanced, Bull merges spoken-word delivery and singing to deliver her poem-lyrics in a style that cleverly evokes the best coffeehouse traditions, without being overtly retro. The words themselves are evocative, often pointedly erotic, and when fused to her bandmates appropriately shifting styles, fashion clearly envisioned sound and ...
Continue ReadingAlbum Review
Katie Bull: All Hot Bodies Radiate
by Alberto Bazzurro
Quinto album per la cantante e autrice newyorchese Katie Bull, le cui coordinate espressive spaziano da una vocalità jazz non eccessivamente ortodossa a infiltrazioni di matrice contemporaneo-colta (quella sorta di recitarcantando che segna quasi tutte le sue sortite), senza eludere del tutto refoli di ascendenza per così dire prog-song. L'interlocutore privilegiato della voce, posta sempre molto al centro delle operazioni, è il sax, più spesso tenore, di Jeff Lederer, che sfoggia una sonorità piena, corporea, che qua ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Schuller's Circle Wide: Listen Both Ways
by Troy Collins
Listen Both Ways is the first studio recording by drummer George Schuller's longstanding Circle Wide quintet to concentrate primarily on his original compositions. The group's previous Playscape releases, 2003's Round 'Bout Now and 2008's Like Before, Somewhat After, paid homage to the seminal efforts of famous post-war bandleaders--trumpeter Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet on the former and pianist Keith Jarrett's American Quartet on the latter.Six of the album's eight tunes are staples of the unit's live sets, with ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Schuller: Like Before, But Fresh
by R.J. DeLuke
Throughout musical history, the influences of substantial artists, recorded works, or certain epochal periods, have their effect on contemporaries and ensuing generations. For those that make music, it shows up in their playing or composing. Tracking those influences, whether well-known sources or those under the radar, is not as important as the end result of an individual's statement.
Forward-thinking artists can find inventive ways of incorporating influences into personal statements. That's what Brooklyn-based drummer George Schuller ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Schuller's Circle Wide: Like Before, Somewhat After
by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
This writer's familiarity with the physical concept known as dewpoint is as extensive as can be expected from someone who spent much of her science classes with a literary magazine hidden underneath her notebook. Dewpoint," the appropriately titled opening track of the sophomore release of George Schuller's Circle Wide, is perhaps as elucidating as any semester-long course in conveying what it means to reaching a threshold of precise saturation, neither failing to live up to the bar set high nor ...
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