Home » Jazz Articles » John O'Gallagher
Jazz Articles about John O'Gallagher
Andrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites
by Angelo Leonardi
Sassofonista e orchestratore canadese, Andrew Rathbun ha 47 anni e una ricca carriera alle spalle, svolta negli Stati Uniti con studi al New England Conservatory sotto la guida di Ran Blake e dal 1997 professionalmente a New York in vari contesti. A partire dal debutto del 1999 con Scatter Some Stones, ha inciso alcuni dischi da leader, il più noto dei quali è Sculpture (Fresh Sound 2002) inciso in quintetto col suo mentore Kenny Wheeler. Con quest'ultimo Rathbun ha collaborato ...
Continue ReadingNoah Preminger Group: Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert
by Dan McClenaghan
With Zigsaw: The Music of Steve Lampert, saxophonist Noah Preminger presents his most ambitious album to date. Trumpeter-composer Lampert writes cerebral, avant-garde compositions. Preminger, rather than diving into a collection of Lampert tunes, takes on a single forty-nine minute magnum opus piece that zigzags back and forth between structure and openness, with an all-star septet that creates a sometimes brash, sometimes dreamy and rambling sound. Describing this sound: a sonic jigsaw stew comprised of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew ...
Continue ReadingNoah Preminger Group: Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert
by Karl Ackermann
Tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger has dedicated considerable effort into his imprint on jazz variations of the delta blues with Some Other Time (Newvelle, 2016), Pivot: Live At The 55 Bar (Self-Produced, 2016) and Meditations on Freedom (Self-Produced, 2017). Zigsaw: Music of Steve Lampert is a departure in concept and content with a single extended track composed by Steve Lampert. With this album, Preminger hits a new peak with the fourteenth album in his prolific career. Steve Lampert is ...
Continue ReadingAndrew Rathbun Large Ensemble: Atwood Suites
by Jerome Wilson
Andrew Rathbun is a Canadian saxophonist who has made a major musical statement here with this collection of suites, two of which are based on the poetry of author Margaret Atwood. Rathbun's writing shows the influence of another Canadian, Kenny Wheeler, in its lush sonority, the frequent gorgeous flugelhorn solos by Tim Hagans and the role of Luciana Souza, who both sings Atwood's poetry with gentle forcefulness and moans wordlessly within the orchestral ensembles, the same way Wheeler often utilized ...
Continue ReadingAndrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites
by Paul Rauch
The mingling of jazz music and poetry is not a new concept. It has always been an amiable, yet at times, uncomfortable fit. From a verse standpoint, it is in many ways liberating. While most vocalized lyrics and spoken word forms rely on rhyme to speak to cadence and rhythm, free verse poetry liberates the narrative from the confinements of structure, and much like an improvising instrumentalist, takes spoken language into a intertwining duality with the melody within harmonic dimension. ...
Continue ReadingAndrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites
by Friedrich Kunzmann
In a way, the Atwood Suites have been in the works for almost two decades. When Kenny Wheeler approached Toronto native Andrew Rathbun in search for a band in 2001, the former furthermore inquired if the latter would like a composition of his own penning to be performed beside Wheeler's “Suite Time Suite." Consequently, the “Power Politics Suite," which makes for the second half of the first CD, was born, with Wheeler's and vocalist Luciana Souza's sound specifically in mind. ...
Continue ReadingAndrew Rathbun Large Ensemble: Atwood Suites
by Dan Bilawsky
The marriage between jazz and poetry is having a true moment in the present artistic sphere. The two have long mixed and mingled, oft proving sympathetic and symbiotic in their multidirectional moves, unique cadences, and improvisational capacities. But never before has the connection been so strong and centralized. With drummer Matt Wilson's triumphant encounter with the work of Carl Sandburg, soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom's exploration of Emily Dickinson's writing, saxophonist Benjamin Boone's collaboration with Philip Levine, and a handful ...
Continue Reading
