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Patricia Brennan: Breaking Stretch
by Dan McClenaghan
On her first two albums, vibraphonist Patricia Brennan worked with a quartet comprised of three percussion instruments, herself on vibes and marimba, joined by percussionist Mauricio Herrera and drummer Marcus Gilmore, with a bassist Kim Cass. Momentum in large part, is the name of the game. For Breaking Stretch she expands her musical universe, adding trumpeter Adam O'Farrill and saxophonists Mark Shim and Jon Irabagon. This proved a good move; her musical universe in this septet setting has an energy ...
Continue ReadingPatricia Brennan: Breaking Stretch
by Mike Jurkovic
Wild-willed vibraphonist Patricia Brennan gets straight down to business without any fanciful mission declaration with the Afro-Cuban, effusively powered, clear-the-dancefloor and blow-the-ceiling-off this joint “Los Otros Yo (The Other Selves)," the opening cut of her third album Breaking Stretch. She does so in a captivatingly, wickedly good way. Brennan--who has added much vitality to music by such other big thinkers as Vijay Iyer, Mary Halvorson, Anna Webber, Michael Formanek--began her musical education at 4 years old listening to ...
Continue ReadingKim Cass: Levs
by Vincenzo Roggero
Cosa c'entrano Karlheinz Stockhausen, Arnold Schoenberg e Pierre Boulez con l'arte visiva e con l'inchiostro delle partiture? Ce lo spiega nelle sintetiche e un po' enigmatiche note di copertina lo stesso Kim Cass, bassista dalle frequentazioni eccellenti e dalla mente aperta. Poi, si sa, quello che conta è il risultato finale, dove la miscela degli ingredienti utilizzati deve risultare perfettamente amalgamata e cotta a puntino. Ed è quello che succede in Levs. A proposito di menti aperte, Kass ...
Continue ReadingFrank Carlberg Large Ensemble: Elegy for Thelonious
by Alberto Bazzurro
Dopo aver circumnavigato la musica di Monk in diversi contesti, prevalentemente come pianista in piccoli organici, Frank Carlberg, finlandese di nascita ma newyorchese a tutti gli effetti, affronta in questo suo ultimo, ambizioso lavoro l'ineffabile Thelonious da una prospettiva diversa: dedicandogli una serie di composizioni proprie ispirate a lui e alla sua arte così fuori da ogni ovvietà (non senza scampoli tematici acchiappati al volo e titolazioni spesso molto gustose ed emblematiche, da “Scallop's Scallop" a “Wrinkle on Trinkle," in ...
Continue ReadingChristine Correa: Just You Stand and Listen with Me
by Angelo Leonardi
«Il primo incontro con la musica di Abbey Lincoln l'ho avuto nel 1979 tramite Ran Blake, poco dopo il mio arrivo negli Stati Uniti--ha ricordato Christine Correa--. Non avevo mai ascoltato registrazioni così intense come la Freedom Now Suite e Straight Ahead. Il messaggio di Abbey era appassionato, espressivo, con un potere tutto suo. (...) Quella sua voce possente ha avuto un effetto duraturo su di me e la sua musica ha continuato ad essere una fonte d'ispirazione».
Continue ReadingFrank Carlberg Large Ensemble: Elegy for Thelonious
by Jerome Wilson
Pianist Frank Carlberg has been exploring the music of Thelonious Monk for some time, most specifically on his large group album, Monk Dreams, Hallucinations, and Nightmares, (Sunnyside, 2017). This new album has Carlberg returning to the large ensemble format for more Monk investigations, but this time approaching the work in a more splintered and abstract fashion. He does not simply interpret familiar Monk tunes. He writes compositions and arrangements which stitch Monk riffs and ideas into new fabrics, ...
Continue ReadingFrank Carlberg Large Ensemble: Elegy for Thelonious
by Mark Corroto
There was a sardonic saying circulating a few years ago that observed, “It's Frank Sinatra's world, we just live in it." While that was a backhanded compliment, tailoring it to the subject of this large ensemble recording, we would call it a commendation. Pianist, composer, and conductor Frank Carlberg is telling us, “It's Thelonious Monk's world, and (thank god) we live in it." Carlberg has been a disciple of Monk for decades, recording his music in a piano trio format ...
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