Jazz Articles about Joel Grip

About Joel Grip

Album Review

[Ahmed]: Super Majnoon (East Meets West)

Read "Super Majnoon (East Meets West)" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
March 21, 2020

It's well known that artistic constraints can in fact aid creativity, but few have put the theory into such good practice as [Ahmed]. The international co-operative of improvisers, comprising the British pair of pianist Pat Thomas and saxophonist Seymour Wright, Berlin-based Swedish bassist Joel Grip and French drummer Antonin Gerbal, takes as its unlikely premise the pioneering music of American bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik which fused Arabic, East African and jazz modes. Claiming Sudanese descent (although jazz historian ...

Album Review

Ahmed: Super Majnoon (East Meets West)

Read "Super Majnoon (East Meets West)" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 29, 2019

There are discoveries in jazz waiting (patiently) to be unearthed. Most of them are hidden in plain sight, like the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik. Born in Brooklyn in 1927, the bassist performed and recorded with, among others Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Randy Weston. Besides double bass, he pioneered the oud in jazz and improvised music as early as the late-1950s. Was it Randy Weston who inspired Abdul-Malik, or conversely did Abdul-Malik spark Weston to explore African and ...