Jazz Articles about Jared Schonig

About Jared Schonig

Album Review

A great party is never just an event. It is a sequence of emotions, encounters, expectations, surprises, fleeting romances, moments of reflection, and, ultimately, gratitude. On A Marvelous Party, Duchess (Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner, Melissa Stylianou) transforms that universal experience into an irresistible jazz journey. More than a collection of standards and popular songs, this is a carefully conceived concept album that traces the cycle of a memorable gathering from invitation to farewell. Throughout the program, arranger Oded ...

Album Review

Rin Seo: City Suite

Read "City Suite" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
June 25, 2026

Il nome di Rin Seo si aggiunge al numero delle talentose musiciste di origine asiatica che nell'ultimo ventennio hanno mostrato d'aver creativamente assimilato l'idioma musicale afro-americano. Tra esse non mancano le orchestratrici che ottengono risultati eccellenti anche grazie alla solida preparazione negli studi classici. Nata in Corea 36 anni fa, Rin Seo s'è laureata in composizione classica a Seul e s'è trasferita negli Stati Uniti per studiare al Berklee College of Music. Dopo il diploma ha conseguito un master ...

Album Review

Rin Seo: City Suite

Read "City Suite" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 18, 2025

There is no doubting which metropolis Korean-born composer Rin Seo had in mind when writing City Suite, the panoramic opening salvo and centerpiece on the debut recording by her fourteen-member Rin Seo Collective, as the suite's first movement is titled “The Big Apple." Seo moved to New York City, her present home, after coming to America to study jazz performance and composition at Boston's Berklee College of Music. The suite's three movements are thematic, and Seo's portrayal ...

Album Review

Ben Kono Group: Voyages

Read "Voyages" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
February 23, 2025

This album is saxophonist Ben Kono's tribute to his family's history, dating back to his grandfather's migration from Japan to the United States in 1911, performed by a combination of small jazz group and string quartet, The first half of the work concerns with his family's transition into life in the United States, and the second half celebrates four generations of Kono's lineage, going from his grandparents all the way through to his own children. The strings are ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Infinite Connections

Read "Infinite Connections" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 3, 2024

Some eighty-odd years ago a handful of trailblazers led by saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie changed the vocabulary of jazz, introducing bebop as a successor to trad jazz and swing and radically transforming the music's landscape and perspective. Their terminology remained pretty much intact for a number of years, with partisans choosing a path between the diverse genres, until at last the very definition of jazz began to move in new directions with newcomers such as cool jazz, ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Infinite Connections

Read "Infinite Connections" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
August 19, 2024

Su queste pagine abbiamo seguito il percorso discografico di Jihye Lee a partire dal suo esordio (April, 2017) ed il successivo Daring Mind (Motéma 2021), co-prodotto con Darcy James Argue. La collaborazione con quest'ultimo si ripropone anche nel nuovo Infinite Connections, registrato nell'ottobre 2023, che evidenzia un significativo passo avanti nella sua sintesi tra jazz e proprie radici musicali. Che la bandleader fosse un talento eccezionale è apparso chiaro dalla rapidità con cui ha padroneggiato le tecniche ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Infinite Connections

Read "Infinite Connections" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
July 22, 2024

One of the most ambitious composers working exclusively in the large-ensemble format, Jihye Lee is now offering her third release, coming on the heels of the well-received April (Self-released, 2017) and Daring Mind (Motéma Music, 2021). Lee is a fearless artist with a seemingly limitless imagination, with a multiplicity of themes and rhythms swirling through her complex, densely-layered compositions. And as always, she once again has a terrific group of colleagues to help bring her rich, multi-hued vision to life. ...