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Jazz Articles about Leo Genovese
Michael Feinberg: Hard Times
by Troy Dostert
Although the Covid pandemic has been devastating to the artistic community, and certainly jazz musicians are no exception, albums like Michael Feinberg's Hard Times point to the possibility of hopeful resilience. With a top-shelf bunch of colleagues and smart compositions with rhythmically crafty arrangements, the bassist's eighth release is a winner, with a plucky spirit and satisfying grooves in abundance. Feinberg pulled this band together in October 2020, and with folks like drummer Jeff “Tain" Watts and pianist ...
Continue ReadingDave Zinno: Fetish
by Rob Rosenblum
While it is obvious that bassist Dave Zinno put a lot of thought into the writing and arrangements here, it is the quality of solo performances that gives this album its worthy distinction. Some may be familiar with pianist Tim Ray from his inclusion in the trio backing one of altoist Greg Abate's albums and his own trio outing on Whaling City Sound label. But trumpeter Eric Benny Bloom and most impressively, the tenor mastery of Mike Tucker, were previously ...
Continue ReadingDave Zinno Unisphere: Fetish
by Jack Bowers
Dave Zinno's New York-based Unisphere is a quintet/sometime sextet that is rhythmically sound, melodically smooth and anchored by his assertive bass lines. The group employs a splendid two-horn front line (tenor saxophonist Mike Tucker, trumpeter Eric Benny Bloom) and adds a third, trombonist/arranger Rafael Rocha, on the freewheeling closer, “Meu Fraco e Cafe Forte" (in English, “My Weakness Is Strong Coffee") but Rocha doesn't solo. The quintet morphs to sextet on five other numbers wherein keyboardist Leo Genovese joins the ...
Continue ReadingLeni Stern: Dance
by Jim Worsley
Compelling is the word. If you are in search of a one word description of Leni Stern's new record, it is indeed the word. Then again, that aptly applies to her body of work over the past thirty-five years. Dance is as much a metaphor as it is a movement. Life, in its never ending struggle to survive and move forward, relies on the merriment of dance to inspire us, push us through the difficult times, and in turn enjoy ...
Continue ReadingLeni Stern: Dance
by Geno Thackara
If one key to a great dance is having the right partner, it must be a doubly (maybe even exponentially) better key to have several. Leni Stern began something of a sequence by forming a new trio for the straightforward 3 (LSR, 2018) and expanding to a quartet with 4 (LSR, 2020). The same group has further gelled, and everything is even more delightfully fluid--the sound palette from dusty guitar to sleek piano with some occasional n'goni harp for flavor, the ...
Continue ReadingDan Blake: Da Fé
by Jerome Wilson
A lot of personal factors go into saxophonist Dan Blake's music on this CD, such as his concerns about the environment, his Buddhist teachings and his social activism. What comes out of this is a style of electro-acoustic jazz which is alternately meditative and fiery. The basic music here was performed in the studio by a quartet of Blake on saxophone, Carmen Staaf on piano, Dmitry Ishenko on bass and Jeff Williams on drums. The tunes were then ...
Continue ReadingDan Blake: Da Fé
by Mike Jurkovic
It's comforting to know that saxophonist Dan Blake hasn't taken Thoreau's inconvenient truth that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation" to heart. Instead, as his Da Fé (translated: of faith) and his apprenticeships with Anthony Braxton} and {{Julian Lage prove succinctly, Blake intends to bring the music, and the consciousness of our fragility within it, to the fore, in hopes the listener can shake the malaise too and pick up the call for action. Blake escorts his ...
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