Jazz Articles about Joshua Abrams

About Joshua Abrams

Album Review

Rempis / Abrams / Ra + Baker: The Walls Of The Temple Are Made Of Sound

Read "The Walls Of The Temple Are Made Of Sound" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 30, 2026

Both Chicago architecture and Chicago jazz inspire images of beefy, mammoth structures. The city's skyscrapers, bridges and industrial-strength rhythms seem built to withstand even the harshest winter winds, the kind vocalist Lou Rawls dubbed “the hawk." The quartet of saxophonist Dave Rempis, pianist Jim Baker, bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Avreeayl Ra trades in similarly brawny sounds on the two-disc The Walls Of The Temple Are Made Of Sound. The group's fifth release since 2016, it follows Scylla (Aerophonic Records, ...

Album Review

Jason Stein: Anchors

Read "Anchors" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
May 26, 2025

Il clarinetto basso vanta nel jazz contemporaneo una rosa di solisti eccellenti, a partire da Eric Dolphy, che ha letteralmente inventato un modo di interpretare lo strumento, di valorizzarne colori e incisività espressiva. Però la sua frequentazione, con lo stesso Dolphy e con personalità quali Michel Portal, John Surman, Vinny Golia, Marty Ehrlich, Don Byron, si è sempre affiancata ad altri strumenti, alla ricerca di una duttilità tipica degli esploratori di tavolozze timbriche aperte e audaci. Tra i rari musicisti ...

Album Review

Jason Stein: Anchors

Read "Anchors" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
November 2, 2024

Six years after releasing his previous album, bass clarinetist Jason Stein returns with a new trio recording that goes outside the realm of conventional jazz. He has been undergoing healing therapy in those six years to combat physical injury and this album is inspired by that process. Aided by bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Gerald Cleaver, Stein constructs trio music that is both meditative and explosive, with the three musicians tightly focused on their collective sound. Stein's playing ...

Album Review

Rempis / Adasiewicz / Abrams / Damon: Propulsion

Read "Propulsion" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
September 12, 2024

Do you ever imagine yourself, while listening to an album from the Chicago creative scene, as a detective in one of those murder mystery movies? The investigator has assembled a wall with a string running from the crime scene photos and victims to all the accused. They do so to visualize the connections between suspects. The same process is helpful with Chicago musicians. Saxophonist Dave Rempis had curated nearly a thousand Thursday night performances at Elastic Arts in Chicago between ...

Album Review

Jason Stein: Anchors

by Mark Corroto
August 31, 2024

Jason Stein would never in a million years characterize Anchors as his variation of A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965). But a comparison can be made. John Coltrane's quartet recording was the most personal and profound statement of his career. The same can be said for Stein and Anchors. He had taken time off from recording and performing due to some chronic pain that plagued him. Stein set about diving deeply into the body, studying massage, specifically trigger point therapy, practicing ...

Album Review

Natural Information Society: Since Time is Gravity

Read "Since Time is Gravity" reviewed by Danen Jobe

by Danen Jobe
May 11, 2023

The concept of trance is one of the oldest in the world. Many older music forms embraced trance for their rituals. One is the Gnawa musical tradition originating in Kano, Nigeria and Morocco, which uses double and triple notes repeated sometimes for hours to induce a religious state while the singer sings stories of spirits. It is played on a gimbri (aka sintir or hajhuj), a three stringed instrument featuring one short and two long goat gut strings over a ...

Album Review

Rempis / Abrams / Ra + Jim Baker: Scylla

by Mark Corroto
October 13, 2022

Avreeayl Ra sets the tone for this entire live set as his voice and mbira open Scylla, “this is for all the survivors." According to Greek mythology Scylla was a beautiful woman who turned into a monster with four eyes and six long snaky necks with heads, each containing three rows of shark's teeth and 12 tentacle legs plus six dog's heads wrapped her waist. Recorded deep into the Covid-19 pandemic, in July 2021, at Chicago's Elastic Arts, one would ...