Jazz Articles about Harris Eisenstadt

Harris Eisenstadt: Canada Day

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 26, 2010

Questo bel lavoro del batterista canadese Harris Eisenstadt sembra voler riportare l'attenzione sul jazz raffinato e pensoso di Wayne Shorter della seconda metà degli anni sessanta. Anche se le composizioni sono tutte originali e tutte scritte dal leader, la musica che questo quintetto sa esprimere lancia molti segnali che vanno in quella direzione. Il tutto è rimodulato intelligentemente verso un clima contemporaneo che non lascia comunque intravedere grandi differenze con quella musica immortale che sapeva evidentemente trascendere il proprio tempo.

Harris Eisenstadt

by Clifford Allen
February 7, 2010

One normally thinks of the drummer-bandleader chair in this music as easily given to a mentality that embraces “more is more." Whether bombastic or just plain full, drummers' bands often focus on mass, rhythm and time. In the post-free arena, leaders like Gerry Hemingway, John Hollenbeck and Harris Eisenstadt have learned not only that every instrument can be a drum, but that the drum can be every instrument and that the drummer's role in creative music is as guide, follower, ...

Harris Eisenstadt: From Mbalax to Canada Day

by Clifford Allen
October 5, 2009

Over the past decade, drummer, bandleader and composer Harris Eisenstadt has been a force in improvised music, active in both Los Angeles and New York (where he now resides). It's a testament to his creativity and energy that his ensembles have run the gamut from free-bop in the vein of post-Blue Note small groups, to orchestral works and the recasting of traditional Senegalese popular song into improvisational vehicles. Canada Day is the name of his latest ensemble and disc (Clean ...

Harris Eisenstadt: Canada Day

by Clifford Allen
October 4, 2009

Drummer and composer Harris Eisenstadt has, at age 33, a rather lengthy discography and one that's incredibly diverse for a drummer who could have stuck to cutting teeth as an able sideman in contemporary improvisation. As a leader, his story is even more expansive, running the gamut from Senegalese Mbalax to free-bop. Canada Day is a “love letter" to his home country and to the mid '60s music of Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams. Across a breadth of ...

Harris Eisenstadt: Canada Day

by Troy Collins
September 29, 2009

A consummate example of the traveling musician, Canadian-born composer/percussionist Harris Eisenstadt's journeys have taken him from a long-term residency on the West Coast (with frequent trips to Chicago) to multiple trips abroad to study drumming in West Africa before relocating to New York. The majority of Eisenstadt's releases have been documents of singular projects; ad-hoc ensembles that, despite their excellence, have never been given the time to properly develop. Canada Day is the self-titled debut album of the quintet he ...

Harris Eisenstadt / Achim Kaufmann / Mark Dresser: Starmelodics

by John Sharpe
May 15, 2009

Canadian drummer and composer Harris Eisenstadt spans a broad spectrum. He has written for large ensemble, octets and small groups, in styles ranging from chamber to Senegalese pop. Though particularly enamored of African drum rhythms he also works readily in totally improvised settings, so his name on the sleeve rarely betokens an expected outcome. On Starmelodics, the drummer in conjunction with German pianist Achim Kaufmann and bass virtuoso Mark Dresser takes a slightly sideways look at the ...

Harris Eisenstadt: Guewel

by Mark Corroto
November 3, 2008

Drummer Harris Eisenstadt's recording, Guewel, isn't jazz. That is to say, it isn't jazz in the American sense of the word but, rather, jazz in the West African musical tradition.

Eisenstadt, a Canadian-born New Yorker, is a student of the art of drumming. His two trips to Gambia and Senegal inspire this recording and his previous release, Jalolu (CIMP, 2003). He adapts traditional and popular music of Senegal within Sabar, the traditional dance and drumming styles. But putting all the ...