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About Jacob Garchik
Jacob Garchik: Clear Line
by Dan Bilawsky
As strange as it may sound, sometimes the best way to break free is to simply box yourself in. Limitations obviously cut off certain possibilities entirely, but they open the mind to so many others in the process. Composer (and trombonist) Jacob Garchik has long subscribed to that line of thinking and he takes it to bold heights on this, the most original, least derivative big band recording to arrive in ages. Basically throwing out the rule ...
Continue ReadingJacob Garchik: Ye Olde
by Troy Collins
Ye Olde, the self-titled debut of Jacob Garchik's latest ensemble, has been described by the eclectic trombonist--who serves as in-house arranger for the Kronos Quartet, co-leads the Mexican brass band Banda de los Muertos, and is responsible for the Atheist Gospel Trombone Choir--thusly: Imagine a 2015 cover of the soundtrack to a 1970's remake of a 1930's movie about the Middle Ages." Truth be told, Garchik's summarization is perfect; though nostalgic, this diverse effort (based on a whimsical tale involving ...
Continue ReadingJacob Garchik: Ye Olde
by Mark F. Turner
In Ye Olde, trombonist Jacob Garchik uses progressive rock, jazz and plenty of imagination to create what might be a mashup of Game of Thrones and 21st century music. He's performed with Henry Threadgill and Lee Konitz and produced the outstanding 2012 solo project The Heavens: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album (Yestereve Records). These proclivities continue in his fourth date as a leader about an imagined faux-Gothic Flatbush/ Brooklyn architecture brought to fruition by a forward thinking band who handle ...
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40Twenty: Jacob Garchik - Jacob Sacks - David Ambrosio - Vinnie Sperrazza: 40Twenty
by AAJ Italy Staff
40 Twenty è un quartetto, composto da alcuni tra i più interessanti musicisti residenti a Brooklyn, il cui nome rimanda alla pratica in voga nei night-club degli anni cinquanta quando i jazzisti suonavano set di quaranta minuti ciascuno con intervalli di venti minuti tra un'esibizione e l'altra. Ma la musica contenuta nell'omonimo disco è assai distante dalle immagini di sax che battagliano tra tintinnii di bicchieri o di sezioni ritmiche che ruggiscono come motori impazziti tra il vociare e i ...
Continue ReadingAlbum Review
Jacob Garchik: The Heavens: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album
by AAJ Italy Staff
Non fatevi ingannare dalle polifonie che emergono da The Heavens: the Athesit Gospel Trombone Album. Nessuna reincarnazione della Lester Bowie's Brass Band, semplicemente un album registrato in solitaria nel proprio studio domestico da Jacob Garchick. Che utilizzando la tecnica della sovra-incisione di parti per trombone, sousaphone, corno baritono, corno contralto e tromba a coulisse arriva a produrre una massa sonora di tredici strumenti contemporaneamente. Il risultato è impressionante, una mini-suite di nemmeno mezz'ora nella quale Garchik riversa con ricchezza espressiva ...
Continue ReadingJacob Garchik: The Heavens (The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album)
by Mark F. Turner
Brooklyn-based Jacob Garchik's The Heavens (The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album) recalls the prose of author James Weldon Johnson's famous 1927 book of poetry, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. where Garchik's stunning trombone work is likened to the poem's protagonist: a charismatic preacher with the ability to deliver awestruck messages. Garchik's trombone is the messenger, yielding powerful orations that are spirited and persuasive, like a sentence taken from Weldon's book that reads:He intoned, he moaned, he pleaded-he ...
Continue ReadingJacob Garchik: Romance
by Laurel Gross
Jacob Garchik may be a trombonist but he marches to the tune of a different drummer. Although his compositions and playing on this new recording don't fall into an easy category, Romance is eminently likeable. While at first everything sounds unpredictable and free-spirited--imagine colors you haven't seen, combinations of sounds you haven't heard--it's soon clear that there is an organizing force behind these original offerings. Some sections are too pretty and melodic, even at times classical sounding, ...
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