Jazz Articles about John Hollenbeck

About John Hollenbeck

Radio & Podcasts

John Hollenbeck, Michael Attias & Nordic Artists

by Maurice Hogue
November 5, 2024

This show has a bit of wanderlust. It starts and closes with music by artists from Scandinavia (an all-star band honouring the music and spirit of Albert Ayler, then at the end a new Norwegian/Swedish quartet called Unionen followed by Nacka Forum celebrating its 25th year and the closer by the Finnish trio Hot Heros). The late trumpeter Dennis Gonzalez loved to take his horn all over the world, and that's the plan for his two sons with their newly-formed ...

Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

Read "Idiom" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
April 4, 2022

Già da oltre un decennio, la complessità della canadese Anna Webber (sax tenore, flauto, composizione) ci interroga sulla possibilità di compenetrare nel jazz di oggi mente e corpo, attitudine concettuale e abbandono rituale. Non è la prima, ovviamente, a lambire questi territori impervi. Si situa, forse, in una geografia sonora che parte da Cecil Taylor e attraversa le gigantesche ombre di Anthony Braxton e Henry Threadgill. Ma, velocemente, sta atterrando in un pianeta sonoro totalmente proprio, come dimostra questo doppio ...

Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

by Hrayr Attarian
August 15, 2021

Award winning composer, saxophonist and flautist Anna Webber is a restless innovator and musical individualist. Her ninth release as a leader, the sublime and magnificent two-disc Idiom is an ambitious project which Webber pulls off brilliantly and with elegance. Five compositions from the “Idiom" series are represented here. Four are in a sparse trio setting while “Idiom VI," which fills the entire second disc, is with a large ensemble. Another one, “Idiom II," (not included here) appeared on Webber's Clockwise ...

Album Review

John Hollenbeck: Songs You Like a Lot

Read "Songs You Like a Lot" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
July 19, 2021

Con questo disco John Hollenbeck conclude la trilogia iniziata otto anni fa sulla reinterpretazione di famosi brani della popular music (Songs I Like A Lot, Sunnyside 2013) e proseguita due anni dopo con Songs We Like a Lot per la stessa etichetta. Nel primo album la scelta dei temi era strettamente personale, nel secondo fu condivisa con alcuni partner (i cantanti Theo Bleckmann e Kate McGarry) ed ora nasce dalla selezione di proposte giunte all'arrangiatore dal suo ...

Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

by Mark Corroto
May 29, 2021

Is Idiom, from composer, saxophonist, and flutist Anna Webber, new classical music or jazz? Yes. Is the music scored or improvised? Again, yes. Last question: Is it demanding or easy on the ears? Both. On the heels of two stellar releases, the septet Clockwise (Pi Recordings, 2019) and the Webber/Morris Big Band recording Both Are True (Greenleaf Music, 2020), Webber was commissioned to present Idiom VI at John Zorn's Stone series. She expanded the material from one track heard on ...

Album Review

John Hollenbeck: Songs You Like A Lot

Read "Songs You Like A Lot" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 14, 2021

Every ending a beginning, each conclusion an act of creation. If multi-hyphenate John Hollenbeck's Songs You Like A Lot doesn't slot within that sentiment, nothing really does. This collection marks the completion of a lauded trilogy that's stretched out across the better part of a decade, but it also signals the start of something new--the Flexatonic Arts non-profit, which will serve as an umbrella for Hollenbeck's arts and education initiatives, and the record label it houses, acting as a home ...

Album Review

John Hollenbeck, Alban Darche, Samuel Blaser, Sebastien Boisseau: Mix of Sun and Clouds

Read "Mix of Sun and Clouds" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
March 20, 2017

La ricca e frammentata scansione ritmica di John Hollenbeck, spesso animata da un'impronta danzante, è un policromo tappeto che interagisce con le parti scritte o gli appassionati interventi di Alban Darche e Samuel Blaser. L'interplay col contrabbassista Sebastien Boisseau finisce di caratterizzare una musica in costante mutazione, che passa da atmosfere d'astratto camerismo a sequenze di magnetica suggestione, capace di rileggere il blues con gli occhi di Julius Hemphill ("Missing Marc Suetterlyn" ) o distendersi liricamente trasfigurando le forme della ...