Jazz Articles about John Lake

About John Lake

Album Review

Erica Seguine/Shon Baker Orchestra: The New Day Bends Light

Read "The New Day Bends Light" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 2, 2023

The New Day Bends Light, the debut recording by the twelve-year-old Erica Seguine/Shon Baker Orchestra, is interesting on a number of levels, not the least of which is emotional. The leaders and their twenty-one piece ensemble are clearly committed to the music and do their best to breathe life into each of the album's seven numbers, three of which were written by Seguine, three by Baker and the other ("Ose Shalom") by Nurit Hirsh. Aside from that, there is the ...

Album Review

Eyal Vilner Big Band: The Jam!

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 2022

Simply leading a big band in 2022 is cause for celebration. Leading a big band as sharp and talented as Eyal Vilner's New York- based ensemble is cause for far more than that. Vilner, an Israeli-born composer, arranger and woodwind specialist, formed the band in 2008, one year after arriving in New York City. He has been busy since then shaping its identity and refining its style, and his persistence pays off big-time on the band's second album, The Jam! ...

Album Review

Remy Le Boeuf's Assembly of Shadows: Architecture of Storms

Read "Architecture of Storms" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
January 24, 2022

Remy Le Boeuf è uno dei nomi emergenti nell'ambito dell'arrangiamento e della conduzione orchestrale. Dopo il sorprendente Assembly of Shadows del 2019, il sassofonista e bandleader californiano (a New York dal 2004) torna con la sua orchestra irrobustita nel numero e nella qualità dei singoli componenti. Tra i nuovi ingressi troviamo in particolare il trombettista Mike Rodriguez e il sassofonista Dayna Stephens, che caratterizzano un paio di brani, anche se il lavoro di Le Boeuf è prettamente ...

Album Review

Steven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic

by Jack Bowers
April 10, 2021

Jazz connoisseurs who lean toward big bands that swing as earnestly and often as the renowned architects of the epic big-band era should find plenty to cheer about on Kinetic, the debut recording by New York-based pianist, composer and arranger Steven Feifke's audacious and fiery ensemble. This is a band that fires on all cylinders—but it couldn't even leave the garage unless Feifke supplied the fuel. With one exception (noted below), Feifke's intense and high-powered charts neatly pave the way, ...

Album Review

Steven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic

Read "Kinetic" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
April 8, 2021

Assimilare la tradizione per poi creare cose originali. È questo il percorso che hanno seguito e continuano a seguire i musicisti jazz, in forme e approfondimenti diversi. A 30 anni esatti il pianista Steven Feifke è ancora al primo passo ma in questo scintillante debutto orchestrale dimostra di avere tutte le carte in regola per sviluppare percorsi originali. Kinetic è infatti un esempio del miglior modern mainstream orchestrale, elaborato sulle lezioni di Thad Jones e Mel Lewis, ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 31, 2021

Korean-born composer Jihye Lee is a musician who knows her own mind, whether it be relentless, unshakable, revived, dissatisfied or Daring, as on her second recording for Motema Records. In 2018, Lee earned the prestigious BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize for “Unshakable Mind," one of nine diverse themes presented here. Another, “I Dare You," is loosely based on Wayne Shorter's response when asked, “What is jazz?" It is a question Lee must also address, as her music is not only ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
March 31, 2021

Solo un talento eccezionale come Jihye Lee poteva ottenere risultati così brillanti e personali nel campo dell'orchestrazione jazz partendo quasi da zero. Nata a Seoul ed emigrata negli Stati Uniti da adolescente, quando s'iscrisse al Berklee College conosceva pochissimo il linguaggio musicale afro-americano e per niente la sua dimensione orchestrale. Dopo un decennio, studi di perfezionamento alla Manhattan School of Music col grande Jim McNeely (a cui va riconosciuto parte del merito) e un primo eccellente debutto (April, 2017), la ...