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Jazz Articles about Herb Robertson
Simon Nabatov with Chris Speed, Herb Robertson, John Hébert, Tom Rainey: Plain
by Mark Corroto
How fitting is the comparison between the music of Simon Nabatov and a Matryoshka doll? The Russian-born American's music is a nesting of not dolls but musical genres, placed one inside the other. Classically trained as a child, he can often be found in the free jazz wilds, moving easily between European and American brands of instant composing. He also has a passion for Brazilian music, chamber music, computer-interfaced sounds, and solo performance. Maybe the easiest introductions to his multi-faceted ...
Continue ReadingThe MacroQuarktet: The Complete Night: Live At The Stone NYC
by Mark Corroto
Listening to The MacroQuarktet calls to mind comedians Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters. Did they warm up before an evening of improvisational comedy? Once on stage or a TV talk show, instantaneously they were 'on,' firing a superabundance of thoughts, jokes, impressions, etc at their audience. It is the same for the two improvised music sets by this 'on' quartet. Recorded in 2007 and originally released as a single disc on Herb Robertson's Ruby Flower Records label as ...
Continue ReadingSatoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Entity
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist / composer Satoko Fujii has staked out her ground as one of the most original voices in jazz—or in any artform, for that matter. She has released more than eighty albums, beginning with her 1995 debut, Something About Water (Libra Records), a piano duet set with Paul Bley. She tours relentlessly. She records in every ensemble format imaginable: solos, duos, trios, quartets and big bands. Lots of big bands, based in Berlin, Tokyo, Kobe, Nagoya, New York.
Continue ReadingSatoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Entity
by Karl Ackermann
As she did in 2019, pianist/composer Satoko Fujii—an artist at home in many formations—opens the new decade with an orchestra recording. Entity, from Fujii's Orchestra New York, is the eleventh release from the ensemble that has remained largely intact for almost twenty-three years. It is an all-star collective that includes saxophonists Oscar Noriega, Ellery Eskelin and Tony Malaby, trumpeters Natsuki Tamura and Herb Robertson, guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Ches Smith. Entity has its moments of tranquility but ...
Continue ReadingSatoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Fukushima
by Karl Ackermann
Satoko Fujii's Orchestra New York has been together since their 1997 debut South Wind (Leo Lab/Libra). A “super group" by any standards, it has remained largely intact over the course of twenty years, bringing the ensemble to its latest release, Fukushima, a memorial suite. The Fukushima nuclear accident was caused by a major earthquake and a subsequent tsunami and was the worst such incident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Fujii was in Tokyo at the time, in 2011. There were ...
Continue ReadingSatoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Fukushima
by Dan McClenaghan
In 2011 an earthquake set into motion the events that would create a partial meltdown of fuel rods in the reactors in the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. Radiation was released. The effects are still felt, and will be for decades (at least)--an especially troubling situation for the only country to have experienced the initially catastrophic and ultimately corrosive and malignant aftermath of a nuclear attack. Satoko Fujii, the Japanese pianist/composer/band leader, has something to say about ...
Continue ReadingEdward Ricart Quartet: Ancón
by AAJ Italy Staff
Ancón è la cittadina panamense in cui Edward Ricart è nato nel 1984. Dopo aver studiato a Praga con Tony Ackerman, nel 2006 il chitarrista si è quindi trasferito negli Stati Uniti (attualmente vive nell'Ohio), collaborando fra gli altri con i vari Marshall Allen, Marty Ehrlich, Ralph Alessi, Khan Jamal, Peter Brötzmann, Dominic Duval, ecc. In questa che ci risulta essere la sua opera prima, Ricart dirige un quartetto di tutto rispetto in cui spicca la tromba di Herb Robertson, ...
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