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Quin Kirchner: The Shadows and The Light
by Kevin Press
Add Chicago's Quin Kirchner to the growing list of young jazz artists who've dropped impressive multi-disc releases in recent years. It has become a kind of rite of passage for a new breed of heavy hitters, these double-and triple-album sets. They are not vanity projects. Not the good ones, anyway. They come from deep pools of creativity. The kind a very few young artists have accessible to them in the early prime of their careers. Kirchner's follow-up to ...
Continue ReadingMatt Ulery: Delicate Charms
by Jerome Wilson
Bassist Matt Ulery works in several groups with differing approaches to jazz and art music. Delicate Charms features a quintet which mixes the romantic lightness of European classical music, the slippery unpredictability of jazz and the thrusting rhythms of progressive rock through a singular combination of alto sax, violin and piano. The CD's opening track, “Coping" lays out the band's agenda. It starts with a slow, dignified theme played by saxophonist Greg Ward and violinist Zach Brock, over ...
Continue ReadingMatt Ulery: Delicate Charms
by Mike Jurkovic
Coming on the heels of 2019's outstanding trio outing Wonderment (Woolgathering Records) with violinist Zach Brock and drummer John Deitemyer, Delicate Charms is a four and a half star recording if ever one was. And it begins with a classical air, an almost chambered hush into which rush those last minute arrivals, each their own player in the “Coping" suite that emblematically ushers in bassist Matt Ulery's particularly distinctive work. Equal parts Charles Mingus ("Taciturn"), Paul Chambers, (his sense of ...
Continue ReadingGreg Ward: Nature Work
by Vincenzo Roggero
"Con quel sorriso può dire ciò che vuole" recitava una pubblicità di un noto dentifricio che rese celebre al grande pubblico l'attrice Virna Lisi. Parafrasando potremmo dire, riguardo Nature Work , “Con quella ritmica puoi suonare quello che vuoi" perché Eric Revis al contrabbasso e Jim Black alla batteria formano una coppia formidabile (sorprendentemente al loro primo incontro), perfetta nell'esaltare le evoluzioni del contralto di Greg Ward e del clarinetto basso di Jason Stein. Ma non pensate ...
Continue ReadingNature Work: Nature Work
by Mark Corroto
Jason Stein and Greg Ward are two stalwart Chicago musicians who continually stretch boundaries and search for new experiences. Stein, a devotee of the bass clarinet, maintains two trios, Hearts & Minds (with Paul Giallorenzo and Chad Taylor) and Locksmith Isador (with Jason Roebke and Mike Pride), plus his quartet with Joshua Abrams, Keefe Jackson, and Tom Rainey. Ward's alto saxophone (and occasional clarinet) can be heard in his large ensemble 10 Tongues and Rogue Parade (with Matt Gold, Dave ...
Continue ReadingNature Work Live at BIMHUIS Amsterdam
by BIMHUIS
This spring sees the release of the debut album by this new supergroup and the first clips on YouTube are convincing in every way: imaginative, fluid themes by the founders of the group, alto saxophonist Greg Ward and bass clarinetist Jason Stein, and boneshaking grooves by a first-class rhythm section, double bassist Eric Revis and drummer Jim Black. Greg Ward is respected as a saxophonist and composer working with many jazz bands in New York and Chicago, as ...
Continue ReadingGreg Ward presents Rogue Parade: Stomping Off From Greenwood
by Jerome Wilson
On this CD saxophonist Greg Ward presents a new group, Rogue Parade, which features a front line with two guitarists, Matt Gold and Dave Miller, alongside Ward's alto. Such a configuration, combined with the graffiti-covered walls on the CD cover, suggests this band might work the slippery, interlocking street-funk path explored by Steve Coleman's groups with similar instrumentation. That style is present here, but it's just one of many utilized by Ward and his band . “Metropolis" and ...
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