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Ellis Marsalis with Jason Marsalis: The New Orleans Collection: For All We Know
by Pierre Giroux
Newvelle Records, which was established in 2015, believes that in this digital age there is an opportunity to build a new model for creating and distributing music. Each year, Newvelle releases a series of six albums, exclusively on vinyl, that pairs musicians with celebrated artists, writers and poets. The New Orleans Collection contains four single sleeve 180 gram clear vinyl albums, each of which was recorded in New Orleans between January and March 2020 at Esplanade Studios, a former church ...
Continue ReadingSteve Masakowski and the Masakowski Family: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
by C. Michael Bailey
Holiday Music...with an edge. The holiday season always provides plenty of inspiration for musicians. Jazzers are especially affected, having produced many notable records, beginning, with the Vince Guaraldi trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas (Fantasy, 1965). That recording provides a convenient jumping off point for discussing the Masakowski Family's Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, which contains several performances derived specifically from that recording. The Masakowski Family is paterfamilias and guitarist Steve Masakowski (who discharges all arrangement ...
Continue ReadingJason Marsalis Quartet at SOUTH
by Steve Bryant
Jason Marsalis Quartet SOUTH Philadelphia, PA October 5, 2015 It is difficult under normal circumstances for the youngest sibling in a family. When that family is named Marsalis then the dynamic changes and there exists a whole slew of standards and expectations. That is the environment that Jason Marsalis has had to deal with over the course of his life. Of course it doesn't help that his older brothers, trumpeter Wynton and ...
Continue ReadingJason Marsalis: In A World Of Mallets
by Chuck Schultz
On a drum kit, Jason Marsalis often goes several directions (meters, not Meters) at once. On vibraphone, as he demonstrates on In A World Of Mallets, it's more a matter of smoothing out many segments into a continuous whole. Over the course of the album he invokes bells, chimes and the signature tunes of cozy wall clocks grown familiar from decades of old Hollywood, not to mention the Indonesian gamelan and, for good measure near the end, some whistling. The ...
Continue ReadingRichard Doron Johnson: Battle Grounds
by Greg Simmons
In a year that saw some lionized piano trio records, Richard Doron Johnson's debut, Battle Grounds, might be the overlooked gem. Johnson is hardly a household name, even within the small, tight circle of jazz fans. His website reveals stints with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Thelonious Monk Institute, as well as gigs with bassist Ron Carter and guitarist Russell Malone. An iTunes search found only two other recordings besides this one, both as a sideman for Danish ...
Continue ReadingJason Marsalis: Music Update
by J Hunter
It's not like Jason Marsalis has been invisible since he released Music in Motion (Basin Street, 2002); his name's just been on the back of CD booklets instead of the front. With Music Update, Marsalis is back at the top of the bill, except he's brought a different set of sticks with him, or more specifically, a new set of mallets.
Well, not completely new, it seems Marsalis began experimenting with the vibraphone as a primary instrument about eight years ...
Continue ReadingJason Marsalis
by David A. Orthmann
At the age of 26, when most players are still absorbing the music's vast lexicon and beginning the lengthy process of finding their own identity, Jason Marsalis is well on his way to becoming an exceptional jazz drummer. Recordings made over the past several years reveal a staggering array of technical skills and resources that are invariably applied to purely musical ends. From the press rolls of Baby Dodds, to Max Roach's four-limbed independence, to the metric modulations of Jeff ...
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