Jazz Articles about Jeff Arnal

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Jeff Arnal / Curt Cloninger: Drum Major Instinct

by Glenn Astarita
March 24, 2024

Drum Major Instinct is an experimental music duo from Asheville, North Carolina. The duo consists of Jeff Arna, who plays drums & percussion, and Curt Cloninger, who works with modular synthesisers. Their debut release offers an entrancing blend of soundscapes which defy easy categorization. The album title emanates from a 1968 speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, referencing the 1952 homily ”Drum Major Instincts” by J. Wallace Hamilton which provides an underlying modus operandi for the album as a whole. ...

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Lars Scherzberg: Top Floor Encounter

by John Chacona
May 29, 2022

The first phase of jazz was characterized by melodic improvisation. In its second phase improvisers dealt with harmony and, in the current phase, density is the improviser's concern. So says Anthony Braxton—if I understand him correctly (if anyone does). If so, then Top Floor Encounter may be as characteristic of our time as Armstrong's “Weatherbird" was to the first phase of jazz or Trane's “Giant Steps" was to the second. I didn't say “as important as" or “as good as"—only ...

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Generate Records

by Marc Medwin
August 12, 2009

"It was the DIY movement that inspired me to create a platform for projects that I thought should see the light of day," says percussionist Jeff Arnal of his label, Generate Records. “Friends and I used to make cassettes, which we would distribute in small quantities, but the label format and moving to CDs has allowed more people to hear what we're doing. Having the finished product brings a sort of closure to each project." The small but vital outlet ...

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Aaron Dugan + Jeff Arnal: Dog Day

by Eyal Hareuveni
February 13, 2008

Brooklyn-based guitarist Aaron Dugan, best known as the guitarist of the Hasidic Rap-Reggae Matisyahu, and drummer Jeff Arnal, a former student of Milford Graves and frequent collaborator with trumpeter Nate Wooley and bassist Reuben Radding, have been collaborating since 2003, building a telepathic affinity that enables them to move leisurely between ideas and motives that reference everything from 1960s free jazz, innovative Austrian composer Anton Webern, pop songs and blues to sound experiments à la Sonic Youth .The fourteen brief ...

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Jeff Arnal & Gordon Beeferman: Rogue States

by Tom Greenland
March 13, 2007

Percussionist Jeff Arnal and pianist/composer Gordon Beeferman, two-thirds of Rara Avis (an ongoing trio with alto saxophonist Seth Misterka) and previously featured as a duo on 2001's Bodies of Water, meet again for Rogue States, a short suite of open-minded musical vignettes.

As on their earlier outing, Arnal and Beeferman eschew timbral trickery and sensational sound painting in favor of exploring and expanding on the more “traditional" acoustic palette of the drum kit and piano; unlike Bodies and Rara Avis' ...

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Transit: Transit

by Tom Greenland
May 11, 2006

While improvising musicians thrive on novel combinations of instruments and musical personalities, there is also the sense that close and repeated creative camaraderie fosters group cohesion. Transit, the eponymously titled debut recording from the quartet of drummer Jeff Arnal, bassist Reuben Radding, alto saxophonist Seth Misterka and trumpeter Nate Wooley--all active on the grassroots avant jazz scene burgeoning in boroughs of New York--boasts both qualities, producing a satisfying blend of freshness and familiarity. The album exhibits a ...

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Transit: Transit

by Troy Collins
February 15, 2006

A varied session with roots in cerebral European improvisation, AACM-inspired sound experimentation and New Thing-era ferocity, Transit's self-titled debut demonstrates expert communication, the key to any successful cooperative venture. Although organized by percussionist Jeff Arnal, the members of the quartet share writing credits, relying on collective improvisation as their principle strategy. Though Transit's music is rooted in free jazz, these players are not constrained by preconceived notions.

From the tumultuous vortex of sound that opens the album to ...