Jazz Articles about Jason Stein

About Jason Stein

Radio & Podcasts

Jason Stein, Chet Baker and Ingrid Laubrock Plus a Tribute to Ahmad Jamal

by Jerome Wilson
June 14, 2023

This show, from May, features a tribute to the late Ahmad Jamal, plus old and new music from Jason Stein, Ingrid Laubrock, Chet Baker, and others. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Courtney Pine “Sister Soul" from Devotion (Telarc) 00:48 Marc Cary “Equilibrium" from Life Lessons (Self-Produced) 5:08 Cannonball Adderley “One Man's Dream" from Cannonball Plays Zawinul (Capitol) 8:15 ...

Album Review

Natural Information Society: Since Time is Gravity

Read "Since Time is Gravity" reviewed by Danen Jobe

by Danen Jobe
May 11, 2023

The concept of trance is one of the oldest in the world. Many older music forms embraced trance for their rituals. One is the Gnawa musical tradition originating in Kano, Nigeria and Morocco, which uses double and triple notes repeated sometimes for hours to induce a religious state while the singer sings stories of spirits. It is played on a gimbri (aka sintir or hajhuj), a three stringed instrument featuring one short and two long goat gut strings over a ...

Album Review

Jason Stein / Damon Smith / Adam Shead: Volumes & Surfaces

Read "Volumes & Surfaces" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 13, 2022

Damon Smith might be the hardest working man in show business. Free-jazz show business, that is. If there is a performance or recording somewhere in the States or Europe, there is a very good chance his double bass is in attendance. You name an improvising artist and he's recorded with them, from Roscoe Mitchell to Joe Morris, Jaap Blonk, Joëlle Léandre, Peter Kowald, Sandy Ewen, Burton Greene, Joe McPhee, Fred Van Hove and Henry Kaiser. The list is practically endless. ...

Album Review

Quin Kirchner: The Shadows and The Light

Read "The Shadows and The Light" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 1, 2020

Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam war film, Apocalypse Now, was released in 1979. After sitting for 2 and ½ hours, a viewer might have hoped for theater management to stand at the exits to hand out pamphlets explaining what had just gone down. The conflict had ended 4 years prior, and most war movies, pre- Vietnam, were straight-forward, America-saves-the-world affairs. Goodnight. In between a surf crazed Robert Duval, Playboy Bunnies, and the insane Colonel Kurtz played by Marlon Brando, the movie ...

Album Review

Quin Kirchner: The Shadows and The Light

Read "The Shadows and The Light" reviewed by Kevin Press

by Kevin Press
July 31, 2020

Add Chicago's Quin Kirchner to the growing list of young jazz artists who've dropped impressive multi-disc releases in recent years. It has become a kind of rite of passage for a new breed of heavy hitters, these double-and triple-album sets. They are not vanity projects. Not the good ones, anyway. They come from deep pools of creativity. The kind a very few young artists have accessible to them in the early prime of their careers. Kirchner's follow-up to ...

Album Review

Threadbare: Silver Dollar

Read "Silver Dollar" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
May 30, 2020

Wobbling like a drunk private eye in a thirties who dunnit, “And When the Situation Arises," the opening salutation of the unflinching Threadbare, rapidly transforms into a free jazz car chase where sodden hero and combatant bounce off light pole and guard rail, skidding towards cliffs with no regard for life, limb or the listener's expectations. It's a brazen launch to an album bristling with an increasingly anxious assurance. Alloying heavy metal with Ornette Coleman's inspired predetermination to ...

Album Review

Jason Stein: Silver Dollar

Read "Silver Dollar" reviewed by Patrick Burnette

by Patrick Burnette
May 25, 2020

The record label's name--NoBusiness Records--should be warning enough. Silver Dollar is not an album trying to make friends. Contents are under pressure and probably dangerous. The group releasing said record, Threadbare, is a sonic-terrorist cell comprised of Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Ben Cruz on electric guitar and Emerson Hunton on drums. Once past the trappings (check out the impressively minimalist cover art work--who knew hard currency could be so scary?), you'll find an accomplished and reasonably rewarding set of ...