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Kenny Garrett: Beyond The Wall
by Russ Musto
Since the release of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965), only a handful of albums have effectively explored jazz's spiritual aspects while sustaining its exciting secular qualities. Beyond The Wall is a masterful work of original music that succeeds marvelously on both levels, building upon Trane's legacy, as well as the work of the date's two very special guest artists--Pharoah Sanders and Bobby Hutcherson--bolstered by the superb rhythm section of pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Robert Hurst, III and drummer ...
Continue ReadingNels Cline: New Monastery: A View Into The Music of Andrew Hill
by Nic Jones
The eight-word subtitle just about sums it up. Cline and his fellows don't take the often too reverential repertory approach with Hill's music, and instead offer up a programme that's as stimulating for its approach as it is for the ground it covers, and that ground is considerable, taking in as it does compositions recorded by Hill over nearly forty years. To hear what is effectively an overview of his music in this way is to be granted an insight ...
Continue ReadingKenny Garrett: Musical Explorer
by Jason Crane
Alto saxophonist and composer Kenny Garrett has released more than a dozen albums over a career spanning nearly three decades. His resume would make the average jazz fan weak in the knees: Freddy Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, the Duke Ellington Band, the Mel Lewis Orchestra, and many others.Garrett was born in Detroit in 1960. His musical travels have taken him around the world, and awakened in him a desire to learn more than just what ...
Continue ReadingKenny Garrett: Beyond the Wall
by John Kelman
Sometimes homages can be too reverential. Alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, with a spiritual energy mirroring a significant influence, John Coltrane, intended to use Beyond the Wall as an opportunity to record with pianist McCoy Tyner, with whom he's shared the bandstand on occasion. Though a scheduling conflict prevented Tyner from participating, his spirit--and that of his late employer--looms large over the project. The result echoes the scope of larger-scale Tyner projects like Asante (Blue Note, 1970) and the fierce modality ...
Continue ReadingKenny Garrett: Beyond the Wall
by Troy Collins
Alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett's first recording for Nonesuch, a concept album inspired by a recent trip to China, finds him in the company of an all-star ensemble. A phenomenally gifted soloist with a singular tone and instantly identifiable phrasing, he has walked a fine line between mainstream jazz and more popular forms in the recent past. In previous situations with producer Marcus Miller, Garrett veered dangerously close to watered down smooth jazz. Beyond The Wall remedies this situation. ...
Continue ReadingKenny Garrett
by Peter Madsen
Greetings to all of you Wide-Open Jazz and Beyond readers. I've just returned from a one month European tour with the great funk trombonist Fred Wesley of James Brown fame (who I'll write about in a future article). We played many of the summer festivals including the world-famous Montreaux Jazz Festival. As I was roaming the halls in the backstage area I ran into an old friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a while, the incredible saxophonist Kenny ...
Continue ReadingKenny Garrett: Standard of Language
by Riel Lazarus
The glowing reviews have already begun to pour in for saxophonist Kenny Garrett's newest release, Standard of Language - a recording of substantial quality, and a reaffirmation of Garrett's place among the best in jazz today. But as good as Garrett may be, it's the collective power of the ensemble that's most significant here. With pianist Vernell Brown, bassist Charnett Moffett and drummer Chris Dave, Garrett has assembled a quartet capable of barnstorming swing as well as balladeering tenderness.
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