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Jazz Articles about John Hébert
Running The Bas(s)es
by Maurice Hogue
In baseball parlance, “touch 'em all" refers to hitting a four-bagger, a home run. In this week's episode, we try to “touch" a whole bunch of wonderful contemporary bassists. The following would make up a pretty darn good all-star team of “bass" runners: John Hébert with Marty Ehrlich, Joshua Abrams, Drew Gress in Free Country, Sean Conly, Moppa Elliott of Mostly Other People Do The Killing, Antoine Berjeaut, Robert Landfermann, Hubert Dupont, Krzysztof Pabian of the Chicago Edge Ensemble , ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober: Balancing Act
by Angelo Leonardi
Non è facile coniugare raffinatezza formale e tensione emotiva, meticolose orchestrazioni e libertà individuale, sottigliezze cameristiche e momenti jazzisticamente impetuosi. A capo del suo ottetto, Mike Holober offre un appassionante esempio di tutto ciò, realizzando il suo lavoro più maturo e ricercato, a distanza di sei anni dal precedente con la Gotham Jazz Orchestra (Quake, Sunnyside 2009). Pianista, compositore e insegnante al City College e alla Manhattan School of Music di New York, Holober s'è ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober: Balancing Act
by Mark Sullivan
Pianist/composer Mike Holober has had an active career with big bands (including HR Big Band Frankfurt, WDR Big Band Cologne, Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, and the Westchester Jazz Orchestra in the U.S.). So he brings a refined approach to the composing and arranging on this octet recording. He set himself an ambitious goal: to feature a vocalist, but as another frontline instrument rather than the primary focus. “I wanted to use a singer and lyrics in extended form compositions--not wrapped up ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober: Balancing Act
by Dan Bilawsky
Conceptualizing and creating music is a delicate balancing act, leaving composers to strive for symmetry between head and heart, reasoning and intuition, and structure and freedom. Who better to understand that than Mike Holober? Whether penning a piece or playing piano, Holober has always shown himself to be mindful of the need to find harmony between those and other opposing principles. It's his ability to do so that, in large part, has made him such a hot commodity in the ...
Continue ReadingJohn Hébert: Floodgates
by Mark Corroto
Finding three musicians that speak the same language--jazz--is not uncommon. However, finding three that are as compatible as bassist John Hébert, pianist Benoît Delbecq, and drummer Gerald Cleaver is, as the French say, recherché. French culture is the theme of Hébert's trio recording. The New Orleans born, Cajun bassist invited the Paris-based pianist and Detroit's Cleaver (a city founded by French officer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac) to record the follow-up to their inaugural release Spiritual Lover ...
Continue ReadingJurgen Friedrich: Monosuite
by Dan Bilawsky
Pianist Jurgen Friedrich doesn't play a single note of music on Monosuite, but his personality and cognitive bearing are omnipresent. While Friedrich's piano was at the heart of the sound on the trio-based Pollock, he removes his hands from the ivories on this follow-up date, allowing a cadre of string players and a highly flexible foursome to express his well-crafted thoughts in their own way. This 49-minute opus is as much about sought-after equilibrium as anything else. ...
Continue ReadingJohn Hebert: Spiritual Lover
by Stuart Broomer
John Hébert's skills as a bassist have been amply apparent for several years, in projects that have called on rock-solid tone, time and pitch to imaginative free improvisation. But Byzantine Monkey (Clean Feed, 2009) demonstrated his substantial talents as a composer and bandleader, fronting a quintet/sextet dense in reeds and percussion. On Spiritual Lover he's taken a different tack, leading a trio with French pianist Benoît Delbecq (adding clavinet and analogue synth) and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Hébert ...
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