Jazz Articles about John Hébert

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Jurgen Friedrich: Monosuite

by Dan Bilawsky
August 17, 2012

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. ...

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John Hebert: Spiritual Lover

by Stuart Broomer
June 4, 2010

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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John Hebert: Byzantine Monkey

by Stuart Broomer
December 4, 2009

John Hébert's Byzantine Monkey begins with a loop of the traditional “La Reine de la Salle" sung by Odile Falcon in an ancient reedy voice, Hébert's improvised bass joining in, his lines at once swift and empathetic, lyrical and microtonal, his sound deeply resonant and every metallic buzz of string and finger captured. It's an arresting moment, Hébert's Louisiana roots as palpable as his bass. Those roots are just as apparent when loop and bass cede the foreground to Tony ...

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John Hebert

by A. Henkin
September 11, 2009

John Hebert is the answer to the sad trivia question, Who is the last bassist to play with pianist Andrew Hill? That final performance came on Mar. 29th, 2007 at Trinity Church in downtown Manhattan in a trio with drummer Eric McPherson; Hill would die just over three weeks later. For the New Orleans-born Hebert, being part of the bass lineage of Hill, a pantheon that has included Richard Davis, Ron Carter, Reggie Workman and even Hebert's teacher from William ...

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Jurgen Friedrich: Pollock

by Jerry D'Souza
August 3, 2009

Pianist Jürgen Friedrich, bassist John Hebert and drummer Tony Moreno banded together in 1998 when Friedrich, who was on a visit to the United States, met the other two at a jam session. The empathy between them was instant and they decided to team up. They hit the road, creating an ambience that was snug in the comfort zone of chamber music.

Friedrich is a judicious and resolute pianist, choosing his notes with deliberation. He is in no hurry to ...

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John Hebert: Byzantine Monkey

by Nic Jones
June 21, 2009

Bassist John Hebert was a member of guitarist Mary Halvorson's trio that put out the memorable Dragon's Head on Firehouse 12 in 2008, while Michael Attias has recorded with guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil on Opium (2002) for CIMP, one of the most rewarding titles of the last ten years. This program thus has a lot to live up to.

If the instrumental line-up suggests free-bop in the mode of early Ornette Coleman then prepare to have that expectation dashed. Hebert clearly ...

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Juergen Friedrich: Pollock

by Dan McClenaghan
June 5, 2009

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), the Abstract Expressionist American painter best known for his “drip paintings" produced from 1947 to 1950, loved and was inspired by jazz. The innovative music of that time in the genre was Bird (Charlie Parker), Dizzy Gillespie and the burgeoning bebop sounds that Pollack would listen to while he created. Jazz has loved and drawn inspiration from Pollack, too--in part, perhaps, due to the improvisational aspect of the painter's best known art. The original album cover of ...