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Maria Schneider: Data Lords
by Pat Youngspiel
Well someone doesn't seem too happy with the digital world. But that's nothing new for Maria Schneider. The Grammy-award winning composer and bandleader has been an outspoken critic of copyright abuses in the digital and streaming world of music for the biggest part of the last decade. On her newest effort, she sets her justified quarrels with the industry to music by juxtaposing the cold world of ones and zeroes, comprised on the first CD titled “The Digital World," in ...
Continue ReadingMaria Schneider Orchestra: Data Lords
by Jerome Wilson
Composer Maria Schneider has long been writing and speaking about the dangers of the omnipresent digital universe, intellectual property theft, gathering and manipulation of personal data by big tech companies, the unchecked proliferation of false and misleading material, and so on. Those concerns form the basis of her latest musical project, Data Lords, a 2 CD set examining the conflicting realities of the digital and real worlds. The two CDs are labeled “The Digital World" and “Our Natural ...
Continue ReadingMaria Schneider: Data Lords
by Doug Hall
Maria Schneider, jazz pianist, orchestral composer and 2019 NEA Jazz Master, has just released a new double-album, Data Lords (artistShare, 2020), which creates poignant musical imagery about our data-driven world. Schneider, who has been an active advocate for musicians' rights and copyright, has followed-on this impact, citing “big data" companies as manipulators of music, culture and privacy. This collection of uniquely and emotionally rendered original compositions addresses the conflicting relationships between the digital and natural worlds, featuring Schneider's orchestra of ...
Continue ReadingDave Pietro: Hypersphere
by Paul Rauch
You may not know the name Dave Pietro offhand, but it is likely, if you are a jazz fan of any sort, that you have heard him play. As a saxophone/woodwind artist, composer, educator, sideman, and bandleader, he has performed across a broad spectrum of projects since his becoming a mainstay on the New York scene in 1987. That aspect of his career has enabled a sizable skill set that transfers over into his personal projects. His compositional ...
Continue ReadingMaria Schneider Orchestra: Data Lords
by Karl Ackermann
The skillfully designed cover art tells part of the story; a leaf--half as nature intended--the remainder, a circuit board doppelganger. The pastoral soundscapes associated with the music of Grammy-winning composer/bandleader Maria Schneider belie her activist alter-ego. An outspoken critic of copyright protections, prejudicial revenue schemes and the abuses of “big data," Schneider has authored op-eds and testified before the US Congress. She ventures onto unfamiliar terrain, coalescing her passions on a masterwork double album, Data Lords. The two ...
Continue ReadingMichael Thomas: Event Horizon
by Jerome Wilson
Jimmy Katz seems to really be onto something with his Giant Step Arts label. Begun in 2018, the label has established a tradition of recording live performances by modern jazz musicians given complete freedom of repertoire and personnel. That approach has produced several outstanding releases including, earlier this year, The Concert: 12 Musings For Isabella, (Giant Step Arts, 2020) by trumpeter Jason Palmer, who also appears on the label's latest release, this time as a sideman for alto saxophonist Michael ...
Continue ReadingEric Alexander: Leap of Faith
by Angelo Leonardi
Eric Alexander è uno dei massimi tenoristi della sua generazione. In oltre quaranta dischi da leader e un centinaio di collaborazioni, ha evidenziato piena adesione al modern mainstream, privilegiando l'esibizione in quartetti o quintetti con la tipica sezione ritmica comprendente un pianista (spesso il suo mentore Harold Mabern) o talvolta un chitarrista (Pat Martino o Peter Bernstein). Anche la relazione coi partner s'è dimostrata stabile, confermando in molti album John Webber o Nat Reeves al contrabbasso e Joe Farnsworth alla ...
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