Jazz Articles about Jonathan Barber

About Jonathan Barber

Liner Notes

Surely it must be considered a milestone to chalk up Correlations as Steve Davis' 20th session as a leader. Just contemplate how much the world has changed since the trombonist started turning heads as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers back at the start of the '90s. The record business in particular occupies a vastly different landscape than was once the norm, a fact that figures all the more prominently in the precarious nature of recorded jazz. As such, ...

Album Review

Felipe Salles: Tiyo's Songs Of Life

Read "Tiyo's Songs Of Life" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
July 23, 2022

Talk about remarkable origins; the music on Tiyo's Songs of Life, performed by tenor saxophonist Felipe Salles' quartet, was written by Tiyo Attallah Salah-El while he was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in a Pennsylvania prison. In spite of his circumstances, Salah-El never lost his love for life, an upbeat frame of mind that is ever-present in these nine sparkling originals. While imprisoned, he earned bachelor's and master's degrees and founded the Coalition for the Abolition ...

Album Review

Felipe Salles, Zaccao Curtis, Avery Sharpe, Jonathan Butler: Tiyo's Songs Of Life

Read "Tiyo's Songs Of Life" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 21, 2022

Embarking on an errant path in his youth led saxophonist Tiyo Attallah Salah-El to life in prison, without the possibility of parole. That is about as grim as it gets, but Salah-El, rather than giving in to defeat, turned himself into a behind-the-bars composer, author and activist. He passed in 2018, but his music came to the attention of saxophonist Felipe Sallas via prison abolitionist Lois Ahrens, who had befriended the imprisoned saxophonist Salaah-El, and even provided him with fifty ...

Album Review

Julieta Eugenio: Jump

by Hrayr Attarian
February 23, 2022

Listening to saxophonist Julieta Eugenio on the engaging Jump it is hard to believe this is only her debut. Her confident playing, warm, brassy tone and intelligent, spontaneous ideas belie her relative youth. Eugenio penned most of the music on Jump, so the release also showcases her superlative compositional skills. The poetic, loose-knit originals are perfectly suited to a trio with ample room for both individual expressions and collective performances. The taut and intriguing “Efes" opens the album ...

Album Review

Julieta Eugenio: Jump

by Dan McClenaghan
January 18, 2022

Aspiring jazz artists who pull up roots and make the “jump" to New York City have a lot of backbone. The uncertainty involved in the attempt to elbow into a hyper competitive situation which can boost a career must make for sleepless nights. For non-Americans, dealing with culture shock and struggling with the English language, things are even more challenging. But, in 2013, saxophonist Julieta Eugenio was undeterred, leaving her home in Argentina to make the pilgrimage that thousands have ...

Album Review

Maria Kruttli: The Kind of Happy One

Read "The Kind of Happy One" reviewed by Neri Pollastri

by Neri Pollastri
June 21, 2021

Quinto album per la pianista svizzera Marie Kruttli, trent'anni e una formazione classica iniziata da bambina, sviluppatasi poi nel mondo del jazz. Qui la troviamo alla testa di un trio, formazione che le è congeniale essendo questo il suo terzo disco, come negli altri affiancata dal contrabbassista Lukas Traxel, ma con alla batteria Jonathan Barber, che con la pianista aveva collaborato in altri contesti ma non in trio. Le composizioni sono tutte originali a firma della Kruttli, che ...

Album Review

John Hasselback III: Entrance

by Jack Bowers
April 30, 2021

Entrance, New York-based trumpeter John Hasselback III's debut recording, is basically a quintet date on which Hasselback shares the front line on four tracks each with saxophonist Wayne Escoffery or trombonist Steve Davis. If one is known by the company he keeps, that's a rather persuasive frame of reference. Hasselback wrote every number save one, the standard “Body and Soul," showing from start to finish a keen ear for enticing bop-inspired melodies and rhythms. He plays as he writes, laying ...