Jazz Articles about Hank Roberts

About Hank Roberts

Album Review

Jeff Lederer with Mary LaRose: Schoenberg on the Beach

Read "Schoenberg on the Beach" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
December 30, 2023

Saxophonist Jeff Lederer has used several unexpected inspirations for musical projects over the years, such as Shaker hymns and the writings of Herman Melville. Schoenberg on the Beach may be the most audacious thing he has ever done. It blends the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern and the sounds of Coney Island together into an intriguing song cycle performed by a team of exceptional jazz musicians. Schoenberg lived in Los Angeles in the latter part of ...

Album Review

Rudy Royston & Flatbed Buggy: DAY

by Dan McClenaghan
May 17, 2023

Drummer Rudy Royston debuted his group Flatbed Buggy in 2018, with the eponymous Greenleaf Records release. It had the feeling of a jazz-folk chamber group. With its unusual instrumentation--Gary Versace's accordion, Hank Roberts' cello, and John Ellis' bass clarinet joining Royston's drums and Joe Martin's bass--a laid-back and engaging Americana vibe emerged. The follow-up, Day, is more of the same, with a bit more swing. With an ear towards the past, the sound recalls drummer Chico Hamilton's mid-50s ...

Album Review

Pipe Dream: Blue Roads

Read "Blue Roads" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
February 28, 2023

Questo secondo capitolo di Pipe Dream, Blue Roads, dopo il sigificativo esordio del 2018, aggiunge un nuovo tassello all'avventura del quintetto, scaturita dall'incontro felice di Hank Roberts con un gruppo di musicisti, tra i più rappresentativi della scena italiana. La propensione melodica, l'attenzione agli impasti strumentali di un organico inusuale che allinea sulla front line violoncello, trombone e vibrafono, la rilassatezza dell'approccio di fondo, che pure mette in atto un robusto gioco ritmico e una fitta trama di contrappunti, sono ...

Live Review

Pipe Dream al Pinocchio di Firenze

by Neri Pollastri
December 7, 2022

Pipe Dream Pinocchio Live Jazz Firenze 19.11.2022 Dopo quattro anni dal precedente disco omonimo, Pipe Dream—una delle formazioni più interessanti non solo del panorama nazionale—torna con un nuovo album e lo fa presentandolo con una breve tournée, che sabato 19 novembre l'ha vista sul palco del Pinocchio Live Jazz di Firenze. Registrato in realtà quando la pandemia stava solo annunciandosi, nel gennaio del 2020, e missato quando si credeva fosse superata, cioè l'estate ...

Album Review

Ivo Perelman: Deep Resonance

Read "Deep Resonance" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
September 20, 2020

Saxophonist Ivo Perelman is an exceptional innovator, even in a genre where originality and inventiveness are the norms. A stalwart of the international creative music scene, Perelman excels in small, intimate group settings. His collaboration with the string trio Arcado, the stimulating Deep Resonance, is a dramatic and introspective recording which draws equally on free improvisation and western classical music traditions. The first movement is constructed out of a mix of overlapping duets alternating with four individual stream-of-consciousness ...

Album Review

Ivo Perelman with Arcado String Trio: Deep Resonance

Read "Deep Resonance" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
August 26, 2020

Throughout his long and prolific recording career, Ivo Perelman has recorded with a large number of free improvisation's leading lights. Pianist Matthew Shipp stands at the top of the pile, with over two dozen joint appearances; Joe Morris, Gerald Cleaver, Whit Dickey, William Parker, and many others help comprise the long list of associates he's maintained since the 1990s. But one would be remiss to ignore the occasional, yet important, work he has done with string players. Violinist/violist Mat Maneri ...

Album Review

Gordon Grdina: Safar-E-Daroon

Read "Safar-E-Daroon" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
April 22, 2020

Safar e Daroon germinates from its dark, submerged interiors immediately and immediately brings you into the light. But a light of what? A lover's lamp? A hushed arena? An Australian wildfire? Take your pick and let your mind go. It's all going to happen and does so in spades on oudist Gordon Grdina's second go-round with his associates, The Marrow. As it has been on recent releases such as Gordon Grdina's Nomad Trio> (Skirl, 2020) with pianist Matt ...