Jazz Articles about Joe Maneri
Maneri/Maneri/Phillips: Angles of Repose

by Ty Cumbie
Angles of Repose is the brand new release of a 2-year-old recording made at Chapelle Sainte Philomène, an old chapel in the south of France. Mat and dad Joe Maneri brought the veteran bassist Barre Phillips into the fold for these very personal music-making sessions, and ECM saw fit to share the results with us. The fine recording only hints at what must have been a gorgeous session, but the downside of playing in a church, I suppose, is an ...
read moreJoe Maneri: Serial Autobiography

by AAJ Staff
Preface Strength is Happiness. Strength is itself victory.In weakness and cowardice there is no happiness.When you wage a struggle, you might win or you might lose.But regardless of the short-term outcome, the very fact of yourcontinuing to struggle is proof of your victory as a human being. ~ Daisaku Ikeda At some point in life everyone will encounter events requiring struggle. That struggle ...
read moreA Fireside Chat with Joe Maneri

by AAJ Staff
Perception is reality. But perception is an unfortunate consequence of opinion and rarely is opinion validated by substance. And perception of Joe Maneri corresponds with his lamentable mainstream obscurity. However, Maneri's obscurity is not his failure, but our own.
All About Jazz: Let's start from the beginning.
Joe Maneri: Music was the only thing that was interesting to me. But I suppose it was because my mother played opera on the radio everyday and I was attracted to it. And ...
read moreJoe Maneri/Barre Phillips/Mat Maneri: Angles Of Repose

by AAJ Staff
For decades, the Boston-based musician Joe Maneri has pursued his singular vision of a freely improvised music based on extensive use of microtones. He often includes his son Mat in his projects. On Angles Of Repose , the Maneris are joined by the prodigiously gifted bassist Barre Phillips in a program of ten free improvisations.
These performances unfold gradually, often with one of the musicians playing a phrase, and the others reacting with variations on the opening phrase. The elder ...
read moreJoe Maneri/Barre Phillips/Mat Maneri: Angles of Repose

by John Kelman
Even the most organic music, in the hands of certain players, can take on a completely other-worldly tinge, somehow managing to feel both rooted in reality yet evocative of alien vistas. Reedman Joe Maneri has been exercising that neck of the woods over a fifty-year career that has seen him emerge as one of the progenitors of modern creative music. Where creative music differs from free jazz is that while improvisation is equally paramount, there is nothing to tie it, ...
read moreManeri Ensemble: Going To Church

by Glenn Astarita
With this release, Joe Maneri (woodwinds) and his equally well-known son, Mat (viola) enlist a modern jazz/free improvising super group. However, history dictates that raw talent is not a prerequisite for success. Although that notion serves as the antithesis to what is conveyed here, on this fine program consisting of open-ended dialogue and yearning lines. The artists’ interactions most assuredly emanate from the spirit within. The message is complex yet starkly personalized – where all semblances of rhythm are reduced ...
read moreManeri/Morris/Maneri: Out Right Now

by Glenn Astarita
With this new release, the Swiss 'hatOLOGY' record label serves up six pieces culled form a live 1995 performance, featuring the trio's permutations of microtonal passages, call and response techniques, and unorthodox harmonic fabrications. On the 26-minute opener, Some And Then Some," tenor saxophonist Joe Maneri renders an amalgamation of half-tones and abstract, blues-based lines along with emotive howls and shrieks, as violinist Mat Maneri and guitarist Joe Morris engage in circular, three-way dialogue atop a bevy of intertwining textures. ...
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