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Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley
by Angelo Leonardi
Scoperto da Carla Bley nel 1979, quand'era ancora studente diciannovenne, e rimasto nei suoi gruppi per tre anni, Arturo O'Farrill ne celebra la memoria con quest'album ambizioso, che raccoglie due sue suites ed una ("Blue Palestine") che lui stesso commissionò alla grande autrice e bandleader nel 2019, quattro anni prima della sua morte. “Mundoagua" la composizione che apre il disco è stata scritta per commemorare l'Anno dell'acqua ed ha avuto la sua anteprima al Miller Theater di New ...
Continue ReadingArturo O'Farrill: Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley
by Jack Bowers
Mundoagua, the latest album by composer and pianist Arturo O'Farrill's Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, is subdivided into three suites, the second of which is the four-movement “Blue Palestine," written and arranged by another celebrated composer and pianist, Carla Bley, a leading light in the avant-garde free jazz movement of the mid-twentieth century, who died of cancer in October 2023. The opening suite, “Mundoagua," commissioned by the Columbia University School of the Arts in 2018 to commemorate the ...
Continue ReadingCan Jazz Have a Sense of Humor?
by Patrick Burnette
Jazz--mysterious, challenging, expressive... funny? Rarely, one might think, but some artists display a sense of humor, even if it's subtle. In this episode, the boys listen to five albums with at least some humorous aspects. Things rarely get “funny ha ha" but hey, this isn't a Zappa podcast, now is it? Playlist Discussion of George Benson's album White Rabbit (CTI!) 2:37 Discussion of Ray Anderson's album Blues Bred in the Bone (Enja) 17:55 Discussion of Horace Silver's album ...
Continue ReadingKaren Mantler: Business is Bad
by Hrayr Attarian
Composer/singer/multi-instrumentalist Karen Mantler's fifth release as a leader, Business is Bad, is a set of nine intimate sketches of everyday life. Delivered in Mantler's unique musical style, the pieces range from the whimsical “My Magic Pencil" to the elegiac “Surviving You" and everything in-between. Mantler does not so much sing these engaging soliloquies as she does hum them to herself. On “Catch as Catch Can," she laments the plight of the homeless and the hungry with plenty of ...
Continue ReadingKaren Mantler: Business is Bad
by John Kelman
It's been nearly two decades since Karen Mantler last released an album under her own name on the XtraWATT label belonging to her similarly coifed mother, pianist/composer Carla Bley, but she's been anything but idle. Work on Bley albums like Appearing Nightly (Watt, 2008), recordings by father Michael Mantler like Folly Seeing All This (ECM, 1993), and sessions with fellow singer/songwriter Robert Wyatt have dovetailed with the singer/pianist/harmonicist's collaborations with the Golden Palominos and Hal Wilner, as well as her ...
Continue ReadingCuckooland
by Joshua Weiner
The marriage of jazz and rock musical styles has had a checkered history. The late '60s records of Cannonball Adderley, Gary Burton, Tony Williams, and Miles Davis stretched the boundaries of jazz music while successfully bringing it to a broad young audience. The later development of Fusion with a capital “F" by Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever, and Weather Report led to platinum sales by jazz artists and some great records.It also, unfortunately, prompted the release of many ...
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