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Jazz Articles about Gerald Cleaver
Yelena Eckemoff: In The Shadow Of A Cloud
by John Kelman
She may rarely perform live in this context, but Yelena Eckemoff has managed to build, over just seven years and a mammoth eleven releases--including her second release of 2017, In the Shadow of a Cloud--a loyal and growing following in the jazz world. It's all the more remarkable for a multi-talented expat Russian pianist who began life in the classical world, and only entered the jazz world in 2010 with Cold Sun. But there's even more to marvel ...
Continue ReadingSamuel Blaser Quartet: As the Sea
by AAJ Italy Staff
Quartetto d'eccezione quello allestito da Samuel Blaser, giovane trombonista svizzero che con una decina di incisioni si è costruito una solida reputazione tra i colleghi e unanimi apprezzamenti dagli addetti ai lavori. Perché se il bassista Banz Oester, pur vantando collaborazioni prestigiose con Pierre Favre ed Harry Hemingway, è nome non troppo noto, il batterista Gerald Cleaver ed il chitarrista Marc Ducret non hanno bisogno di presentazioni e contribuiscono in maniera decisiva alla riuscita di questo lavoro. Samuel Blaser è ...
Continue ReadingSamuel Blaser Quartet: As The Sea
by Glenn Astarita
Allocating his time between Europe and New York City, Swiss-born trombone maestro Samuel Blaser has recorded for prominent record labels, specializing in the outside jazz realm. Thus, As The Sea is the quartet's follow-up to Boundless (hatOLOGY, 2011). Blaser's recognizable plight to lay out nouveau frontiers remains a continuum. No wonder why he's garnered the assistance of such reputable instrumentalists. Otherwise, the program contains a flux of contrapuntal statements. His musicality imparts breathy expansionism amid swarming movements that are purposely ...
Continue ReadingSamuel Blaser Quartet: As The Sea
by Eyal Hareuveni
The whole of some musical outfits is greater than its separate parts. The Berlin-based, Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser's Quartet is one of these outfits, comprised of resourceful musicians with strong personalities, distinct approaches that together complement the strengths of this band but also pushes it into newer terrains. Blaser is conservatory trained and university educated, has a perfect-pitch sound on the trombone and rich musical vision that encompasses anything between composer Richard Wagner's grandiose operas, classical Indian ...
Continue ReadingGerald Cleaver: Uncle June: Be It As I See It
by AAJ Italy Staff
Sarà anche un'ovvietà, ma l'occhio di Horus ci ricorda tanto Sun Ra e il suo misticismo solareggiante, anche se, in questo terzo disco di Cleaver, “Sonny" Blount e la sua mitologia cosmica forse hanno lasciato il segno in un gusto dell'arcano (l'occhio accostato alle foto di famiglia, i simboli della copertina interna e l'enigmatico testo della poesia “He Said" sembrano degni a una certa mistica psichedelica) e nello sguardo decisamente anticonvenzionale, ma un po' meno nei contenuti musicali. Un'aurea misteriosa ...
Continue ReadingGerald Cleaver: Be It As I See It
by John Sharpe
On his fourth disc as leader, and the first with his Uncle June ensemble, Detroit-native drummer Gerald Cleaver shoots for the stars. Though termed a sound collage based on the Great Migration, Be It As I See Itis not programmatic. Cleaver's approach is personal, celebrating the intelligence, strength and humor of the folks he grew up with, and those who made one of the first real choices for black people in America: the movement of two million out of the ...
Continue ReadingGerald Cleaver / Uncle June: Be It As I See It
by Nic Jones
Drummer Gerald Cleaver has a CV which takes in names like Mario Pavone, Joe Morris, Charles Gayle and Roscoe Mitchell. Of these names it's the last which inspires not only Cleavers's music, but also his appetite for working in new musical forms, and striving for new forms of musical expression. It's hardly surprising, then, that Be It As I See It, his fourth as a leader in his own right--and in the company of his Uncle June ensemble, featuring reed ...
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