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Jazz Articles about Glenn Zaleski
Mareike Wiening: Future Memories
by Mark Corroto
It is interesting that in today's creative music world, a jazz drummer cannot just be a jazz drummer. There are so many great drummers that they have to also be composers, band leaders, and sometimes van drivers. A short list includes Tyshawn Sorey, Allison Miller, Ches Smith, and Terri Lyne Carrington. Add to that list Mareike Wiening, the German-born artist with (now) deep New York roots. Her release Metropolis Paradise (Greenleaf Music, 2019) brought her music critical attention and acclaim, ...
Continue ReadingRoberto Pianca Sub Rosa: Mono No Aware
by Friedrich Kunzmann
The Roberto Pianca-led ensemble Sub Rosa's second release is a concentrated exercise in inter-communicative restraint, subtlety and woven odd meters that provokes the mind while consoling the soul. It's a cool affair that profits from the individual talents' accurate performances and inquisitive spirits as much as the leader's proficiently crafted compositions. Where the predecessor, self-titled Sub Rosa (Wide Ear Records, 2013) was a rather rigorously tempered and vigorously executed display of broad technical virtuosity, Mono No Aware scales things back ...
Continue ReadingTomoko Omura: Branches Vol. 1
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Violinists come in many shapes, colors and sizes. In jazz, there are those who bridge the gap between classical music and a more improvised repertoire seamlessly, as seen with pioneers such as American avant-gardist Mark Feldman. There are others who go about their craft with a more rootsy approach to the improvised music tradition—as heard with virtuosos like Regina Carter. And then of course there's everything in between, from old guard veterans like Stephane Grappelli (also known as ...
Continue ReadingTomoko Omura: Branches Vol. 1
by Nicholas F. Mondello
With Branches Vol. 1, award-winning violinist Tomoro Omura dives deep into exploring textures and melodic invention drawn from Japanese folklore. This effort is a contemporized display which validates Omura's vast instrumental abilities and also channels Japanese folklore as a launch-point for her superior composition skills. The recording is seductive, deeply emotional and meditative, and, simultaneously, elegantly refined. The album offers six tracks, each a fascinating voyage. “Moonlight in Vermont" gets such a re-imagined, polyrhythmic treatment that one ...
Continue ReadingTomoko Omura: Branches Vol. 1
by Mike Jurkovic
If, as you start to yield willingly to the sumptuous, hypnotic Branches, Vol. 1, you should need to walk away and attend to other home/bunker business, try to keep at least one ear on the music. From any point in any room you might hear a gypsy laugh, a lover cry, a Celtic reel. A marvelous new touch on a centuries old instrument, bringing the ages together, gathering all the ley lines into one bustling hub. A rising ...
Continue ReadingNick Finzer: Cast Of Characters
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Trombonist Nick Finzer's fifth album as a leader is a strong testament to his musical influences expressed by through-designed compositions and lively interplay. On Cast of Characters , the New York-based musician, composer and label owner has gathered all of his forces together to deliver a concentrated, conceptual exercise in arrangement and instrumentation, which lives off of the impeccable performances of the individual musicians as much as it does off of the compositional material at hand. Traditional swing-and ...
Continue ReadingNick Finzer: Cast Of Characters
by Dan McClenaghan
A cryptic element lurks beneath trombonist Nick Finzer's Cast Of Characters. The theme of the album is artistic influences. But who are they... “We laugh, we cry, we celebrate, we learn, and we forge our own path on the shoulders of those who came before us. We are both the sum of our experience and the product of our influence. We are who we choose to embrace." This is from the spread out trifecta of liner notes in ...
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