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Jazz Articles about Jeff Denson
Dann Zinn: Two Roads
by Chris May
Bliss. Here is a tenor saxophonist to file next to the great New York-based Israeli tenor saxophonist Oded Tzur. The two players are far from interchangeable: each has their distinct sound and each has their distinct style. But both bring intimacy and solace to the soul, and both beam out a vibe of positivity. Tzur and Dann Zinn have come from various places to arrive at adjacent spots. Tzur's style is steeped in years of study of Indian classical raga. ...
Continue ReadingJeff Denson, Romain Pilon and Brian Blade: Finding Light
by Pierre Giroux
Boston's Berklee College of Music has the reputation as an incubator of some top rated musicians including Quincy Jones, Diana Krall and Melissa Etheridge among others. So it should come as no surprise that the threesome attached to this recording, bassist Jeff Denson, guitarist Romain Pilon and drummer Brian Blade were all standout students and friends while simultaneously attending Berklee. Like many other musicians, the two terrible years of the Covid-19 pandemic, put many communal activities ...
Continue ReadingJeff Denson, Romain Pilon, Brian Blade: Between Two Worlds
by Friedrich Kunzmann
American bassist Jeff Denson and French guitarist Romain Pilon not only became professional acquaintances, but also great friends, when they began their studies at the much-revered Boston Berklee College of Music at the end of the last century. On Between Two Worlds the two celebrate their twenty years of on-and-off collaborating, with leading drum wizard Brian Blade completing the trio. In a set of mostly clear structures and highly melodic interplay between all involved, a crunchy guitar effect paired with ...
Continue ReadingJeff Denson: Outside My Window
by Jerome Wilson
Bassist Jeff Denson has been showing his abilities as a singer on several recent recordings. He performed a couple of The Beatles' songs on the San Francisco String Trio's May I Introduce To You and did Jeff Buckley's “So Real" on the Negative Press Project's Eternal Life: Jeff Buckley Songs and Sounds. Here he devotes an entire album to his vocals, singing the work of Buckley, Peter Gabriel, Abbey Lincoln and Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, in addition to several of his ...
Continue ReadingJeff Denson Quartet: Concentric Circles
by Neri Pollastri
Quartetto classico con piano, contrabbasso e batteria, questo a nome del compositore e contrabbassita Jeff Denson si distingue per la presenza come fiato di un fagotto, strumento decisamente atipico, nelle mani di Paul Hanson. Questa particolarità caratterizza un lavoro per il resto abbastanza convenzionale, incentrato perlopiù su ritmi molto serrati e composto interamente da brani originali -tutti a firma di Denson -eccetto il solo conclusivo “I Got It Bad," omaggio a Duke Ellington per solo contrabbasso. Aldilà del ...
Continue ReadingJeff Denson Quartet: Concentric Circles
by Jerome Wilson
The immediate standout feature of Jeff Denson's group is that he uses a bassoon as the reed instrument. That gives an interesting twist to the quartet's sound. Denson's compositions are a free-ranging mix of fast-paced progressive jazz and pretty ballads. The nimble, woody tone of Paul Hanson's bassoon gives an intellectual feel to the shifting tempos of pieces like “City Life" and “Look Before You Leap" that suggests the quirky music of old Canterbury Sound jazz-rock bands like ...
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