Jazz Articles about Maria Schneider

About Maria Schneider

Album Review

Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields

Read "The Thompson Fields" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
July 13, 2015

Scomparso Butch Morris, Maria Schneider è da considerare il massimo compositore-orchestratore del jazz contemporaneo. Ogni suo nuovo disco è un evento e The Thompson Fields lo è in misura maggiore per la lunga gestazione che l'ha caratterizzato. A sette anni di distanza dal celebrato Sky Blue (Artist Share, 2007) Maria presenta nuove composizioni in un percorso coerente che ha il sapore della suite e si ispira alla sua terra d'origine, il Minnesota rurale. Più recentemente la Schneider ha pubblicato ...

Album Review

Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields

Read "The Thompson Fields" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
July 11, 2015

The singular achievement of Maria Schneider is to merge the particular with the universal: to use her very personal experiences and memories as grist for music which is aurally beautiful and deeply infused with love. This love originates from Schneider the person and artist; it is amplified and returned by those directly involved in the creation of this work through the ArtistShare process (including those who commissioned “Arbiters of Evolution," “Home" and “Lembranca"); finally, it is received by ...

Album Review

Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields

Read "The Thompson Fields" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 29, 2015

It's always interesting to discuss the jazz greats of yesteryear and swap thoughts on how the new generation of artists stacks up against the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington. And it's quite possible that the consensus opinion there would be that virtually no one working today can compare favorably to those iconic figures. But in a much different time, when the artistic offerings competing for our entertainment dollars and attention are vast compared ...

Album Review

Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields

Read "The Thompson Fields" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 21, 2015

Composer and band leader Maria Schneider has only a single peer... Carla Bley. Both women are direct descendants of Duke Ellington and the spiritual children of Hector Berlioz. They are not masters of a single instrument, but of collections of instruments and their achievement is realized from directing those instruments in a given direction dictated by their composition and arrangement...just like Ellington. Their compositions are often intricate and expansive, conceived with precision and performed with warmth and organic intelligence. Schneider's ...

Album Review

Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields

Read "The Thompson Fields" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 2, 2015

There's a wealth of information to be found inside the beautiful packaging that accompanies this release, but a brief Theodore Roosevelt quote may be the most telling piece of text to be found there. It reads: “There is nothing more practical in the end than the preservation of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the higher emotions in mankind." That really says it all about this artist and her work, for there is nobody more capable of ...

Album Review

Maria Schneider: Lembra De Mim

Read "Lembra De Mim" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 13, 2015

June of 2015 can't come soon enough for fans of the Maria Schneider Orchestra. That month will see the release of the The Thompson Fields--the long-awaited followup to the stunning Sky Blue (ArtistShare, 2007). In the meantime, Schneider has been gracious enough to deliver a pair of bonus tracks to tide everyone over until the album drops: an updated take on “Dance You Monster To My Soft Song," a piece originally presented on Evanescence (Enja, 1994), and her arrangement of ...

Live Review

Maria Schneider Orchestra at Jazz Standard

by Dan Bilawsky
November 30, 2014

Maria Schneider Orchestra Jazz Standard New York, NY November 25, 2014 Thanksgiving is a time to reflect, rejoice, regroup, and remember all that we have to be thankful for. In the jazz world, the Maria Schneider Orchestra always ranks at the top of that last category. For the past decade, the most important large ensemble in jazz has held court at New York's Jazz Standard during Thanksgiving week, delivering the powerful ...