Home » Jazz Articles » Kelly Jefferson
Jazz Articles about Kelly Jefferson
The Saskatchewan All Star Big Band: Saskatchewan Suite
by Jack Bowers
On Saskatchewan Suite, composer/arranger Fred Stride and the twenty-member Saskatchewan All Star Big Band have combined to paint a luminous and colorful portrait of that western Canadian province, canvassing 150 years of its history in eight picturesque movements that describe in musical terms the land itself, its indigenous peoples, newcomers from Europe and elsewhere, its recognition in 1905 as a province, the importance of various sports to Saskatchewan's inhabitants, and the legacy of jazz as an essential part of its ...
Continue ReadingTuneTown: Entering Utopia
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Just over a year after releasing There From Here, their debut record--and taken from the same sessions, held at the Grant Avenue Studio in Hamilton, Ontario in November 2018-- TuneTown's second outing, Entering Utopia, acts as a resolute continuation of the trio's initial statement and paints the three equal leaders in the light of a varied program, combining lyrical balladry in one moment with uncompromising swing in the next. Each of TuneTown's contributors is a respected leader in ...
Continue ReadingAmanda Tosoff: Earth Voices
by Dan Bilawsky
Building off the lure of language planted in Amanda Tosoff's Juno-nominated Words (Empress Music Group, 2016), this sixth album from the Toronto-based composer and pianist waves poetic in wondrous fashion. Pairing different guest vocalists and collections of musicians with personalized takes on Parnassian beauty of varied sorts, Tosoff cements the bonds between earthly voices and heavenly sounds with a questioning spirit. The list of subjects and styles, both in words and music, varies widely on this playlist. ...
Continue ReadingTuneTown: There From Here
by Friedrich Kunzmann
What happens in Canada stays in Canada. Sadly, this worn out phrasing tends to ring true when it comes to Jazz from there. Regrettably so. The jazz scenes in Québec and especially Toronto are as vibrant as they've ever been and produce some of the more interesting releases out there today. The drummer of the acoustic trio going by the name of TuneTown, Ernesto Cervini, is even more aware of this, seeing how next to being a musician, his second ...
Continue ReadingTuneTown: There From Here
by Dan McClenaghan
Tracing the historic path of this particular trio type--saxophone, bass and drums, no chordal instrument--leads back to saxophonist Sonny Rollins' A Night At The Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1958). The sound on that seminal recording is raw, rough around the edges, with the trio bumping through a bunch of familiar tunes, enjoying the freedom from chords. There From Here, the debut of the Toronto-based trio Tune Town, employs a smoother approach, with tenor saxophonist Kelly Jefferson sounding more ...
Continue ReadingAl Muirhead's Canadian Quintet: Undertones
by Dan McClenaghan
Swing was the thing, until alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and pianist Bud Powell helped give birth to bebop, and alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman set jazz free. Not that swing ever went away, it just got bumped into the back seat. So when “Confirmation" and “Dance of the Infidels" wailed on the dashboard radio, Johnny Hodges' alto sax sang sweet notes out of one of the back windows, Lester Young blowing them out the other. But ...
Continue ReadingKelly Jefferson: Spark
by Budd Kopman
Spark, a deeply swinging, straight-ahead, no nonsense album from Kelly Jefferson, is a terrific listen from beginning to end. Canada strikes again! The eight tracks, all original Jefferson compositions, are on the long side, most ranging from seven to eleven minutes, which allows for some extended soloing and interesting arrangements. Jefferson has a big sound and a fertile imagination that produces tunes that have a quickly discernable structure and yet are interesting in their details. His rhythm ...
Continue Reading
