Jazz Articles about Jason Rigby

Mike Holober: Balancing Act

by Angelo Leonardi
July 11, 2016

Non è facile coniugare raffinatezza formale e tensione emotiva, meticolose orchestrazioni e libertà individuale, sottigliezze cameristiche e momenti jazzisticamente impetuosi. A capo del suo ottetto, Mike Holober offre un appassionante esempio di tutto ciò, realizzando il suo lavoro più maturo e ricercato, a distanza di sei anni dal precedente con la Gotham Jazz Orchestra (Quake, Sunnyside 2009). Pianista, compositore e insegnante al City College e alla Manhattan School of Music di New York, Holober s'è ...

Mike Holober: Balancing Act

by Mark Sullivan
November 12, 2015

Pianist/composer Mike Holober has had an active career with big bands (including HR Big Band Frankfurt, WDR Big Band Cologne, Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, and the Westchester Jazz Orchestra in the U.S.). So he brings a refined approach to the composing and arranging on this octet recording. He set himself an ambitious goal: to feature a vocalist, but as another frontline instrument rather than the primary focus. “I wanted to use a singer and lyrics in extended form compositions--not wrapped up ...

Mike Holober: Balancing Act

by Dan Bilawsky
October 14, 2015

Conceptualizing and creating music is a delicate balancing act, leaving composers to strive for symmetry between head and heart, reasoning and intuition, and structure and freedom. Who better to understand that than Mike Holober? Whether penning a piece or playing piano, Holober has always shown himself to be mindful of the need to find harmony between those and other opposing principles. It's his ability to do so that, in large part, has made him such a hot commodity in the ...

Jason Rigby: The Sage

by AAJ Italy Staff
August 26, 2009

Dopo le ottime accoglienze avute nel suo esordio da leader (Translucent Space, Fresh Sound), il sassofonista newyorchese conferma d'avere idee chiare e buon talento per organizzarle. The Sage t'avvolge con un'ondata di suoni familiari, fondendo le atmosfere davisiane di fine anni sessanta (Shorter e Hancock soprattutto) con la libertà melodica e armonica di Ornette. Il tutto riformulato alla luce della contemporaneità (con una tensione ritmica nuova dovuta al notevole connubio tra Cameron Brown e Gerald Cleaver) e condotto con equilibrio ...

Jason Rigby: The Sage

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 14, 2009

The sophomore release of New York-based saxophonist/composer Jason Rigby features him as a unique new voice that deserves wider attention. His deep, full-bodied tenor sound and his inside-outside jazz vocabulary reference sax greats such as John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter, while his elastic sense of time sounds closer to the fluid playfulness of Ornette Coleman. His nuanced compositions and compelling experiments in instrumentation enrich his jazz language with ideas and colors that hark back to composers Béla Bartok, Gustav Mahler ...

Jason Rigby: The Sage

by Jerry D'Souza
March 11, 2009

Jason Rigby is a bold and adventurous composer and saxophonist. He blends styles artfully and gives them a tangent and direction that are out of the ordinary and. in doing so, he brings in a perspective that is as exciting as it is satisfying.

Rigby made his debut as a leader with Translucent Space (Fresh Sound, 2006). His second CD, The Sage, absorbs the spirit of his multifarious vision and brings his writing and playing into sharper focus.

Jason Rigby: The Sage

by J Hunter
February 25, 2009

When purists maintain their Cheney-like insistence that nobody could have foreseen Miles Davis recording something as incendiary as Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969), they reveal a blind spot the size of the Chrysler Building. The pre-Brew signs were as plain as the glasses on Stanley Crouch's face: First there was Filles de Kilimanjaro (Columbia, 1968), which codified changes referenced on Nefertiti (Columbia, 1967); following Filles was In a Silent Way (Columbia, 1969), which--once past the revelatory opening figure of Joe Zawinul's ...