Jazz Articles about John O'Gallagher

About John O'Gallagher

Album Review

Jeff Williams: Road Tales - Live At London Jazz Festival

Read "Road Tales - Live At London Jazz Festival" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann

by Friedrich Kunzmann
December 12, 2020

Some live albums impress with the sophistication of restraint or sonic clarity, others simply boast energy. Veteran drummer Jeff Williams' Road Tales: Live At London Jazz Festival unmistakably belongs to the latter. Vested with two handfuls of original compositions and an adept cast of sidemen, Williams delivers a fiery set of saxophone-led post-bop that revisits a number of tunes from the drummer's past albums and presents a couple of new pieces. Since joining Whirlwind recordings, Williams has been ...

Album Review

Andrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites

Read "Atwood Suites" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
January 24, 2020

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 ...

Album Review

Noah Preminger Group: Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert

Read "Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 25, 2019

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 ...

Album Review

Noah Preminger Group: Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert

Read "Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
September 18, 2019

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 ...

Album Review

Andrew Rathbun Large Ensemble: Atwood Suites

Read "Atwood Suites" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
September 16, 2018

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 ...

Album Review

Andrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites

Read "Atwood Suites" reviewed by Paul Rauch

by Paul Rauch
September 6, 2018

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. ...

Album Review

Andrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites

Read "Atwood Suites" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann

by Friedrich Kunzmann
August 7, 2018

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. ...