Jazz Articles about Joe Fonda

Joe Fonda: Live at the Outpost Performance Space & Live at the Iron Works

by Kurt Gottschalk
July 15, 2006

Conference Call Live at the Outpost Peformance Space 482 Music 2006 Fab Trio Live at Iron Works, Vancouver, BC Konnex 2005

Although the Fonda-Stevens group is a strong band, bassist Joe Fonda is best known as a sideman. His first recording was with Wadada Leo Smith in 1983 and he spent ...

Fonda/Altschul/Bang: Live At The Iron Works, Vancouver

by Nic Jones
April 27, 2006

There aren't too many violin/bass/drums trios out there, and while the live setting might not be the ideal format in which to capture the music of this particular threesome, there's enough here to provoke the hope that this isn't just a one-off venture.

The moments when the trio thinks as one, notably after Altschul's four-minute solo introduction on “Tune For Barry," are countered in the negative sense by the music's longueurs, where at least one of the participants gives the ...

Fonda/Stevens Group: Forever Real

by Ernest Barteldes
September 22, 2005

The mood on Forever Real goes from the pleasant groove of the title track to more experimental moments in which trumpet player Herb Robertson and pianist Michael Jefry Stevens exchange jabs, as on the eight-minute “From The Source and the more up-tempo “The Stalker (eleven minutes that go in every possible direction), in which Robertson makes you think he's switched to a flute at times--which he hasn't, it is just his technique on the instrument.In one of the ...

Joe Fonda: Forever Real

by Robert Iannapollo
March 9, 2005

Talk to bassist Joe Fonda for even a short time and you get caught in the whirlwind. Conversation flows easily from one topic to another: from Anthony Braxton to Duke Ellington to Marvin Gaye or from Paul Wolfowitz to the best wine that goes with salmon. Fonda's one of those incessantly curious people who seems to want to know about everything. “Nuclear Joe is what I call him," says trumpeter Herb Robertson, his band mate in the Fonda/Stevens Group.

Fonda/McPhee/White/Karetnick: Heat Suite

by AAJ Staff
April 15, 2004

Heat Suite, a four-part, freely improvised performance, is a towering achievement. It is music that is constantly flowing, constantly growing. It is full of flux and variety, and every note, every rhythm evolves organically and logically from what has previously been created.“Part 1" begins with Fonda's scraping arco bass, which becomes the platform for White's alto. Soon enough, White and Karetnick engage in a duet, an unmetered meeting in which a fast pulse is suggested ...

Joe Fonda/Barry Altschul/Billy Bang: FAB: Transforming the Space

by Jeff Stockton
February 1, 2004

When I hear musicians shouting or humming on a recording because they can't help themselves, I take it as a good sign. The spontaneity, intensity, and pure joy that comes across in those brief outbursts raises the level of excitement and intimacy so that you almost forget you're sitting in your living room listening to a CD. Bassist Joe Fonda, drummer Barry Altschul, and violinist Billy Bang clearly enjoyed playing the tunes on Transforming the Space , and the disc's ...

Joe Fonda & Gilbert Isbin: Blisters

by Jerry D'Souza
October 20, 2003

Joe Fonda and Gilbert Isbin, partners in time, create vivid imagery via the many manifestations of sound they take their instruments through, over, and across. What is more remarkable is that they do it with an astute aesthetic: there is no howl or cry in their music. What they have is rhythm, a pulse and a kinetic energy that constantly bristles.

The compositions are credited to Fonda and Isbin, but the heartbeat lies in the improvisation that gives ...