Jazz Articles about Mary Halvorson

About Mary Halvorson

Radio & Podcasts

Mary Halvorson, plus new music from Tarun Balani, Brandee Younger and Eduardo Elia

by Hobart Taylor
April 30, 2025

A preview of Mary Halvorson's latest, plus new music from Tarun Balani, Brandee Younger and Eduardo Elia and an interview with saxophonist Kevin Sun. Playlist Olga Amelchenko “Howling Silence" from Howling Silence (Edition) 0:00 Miles Davis “I See Your Face Before Me" from The Musings of Miles (Remastered) (Craft) 5:07 Changamire" It's April" from Seeking Billie: The Unusual tribute to Billie Holiday (Sonnig) 9:50 Host Speaks 13:06 Eduardo Elia “II" from Desvikos (577) 15:11 Mary Halvorson “Carved From" ...

Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells

Read "Bone Bells" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
April 18, 2025

Guitarist and sound-chaser Mary Halvorsonnever fails to hypnotize. Add the equally hypnotic pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and beauties like Bone Bells materialize to shift your news-exhausted consciousness to greater possibilities. Bone Bells does that. Bone Bells does it often. Once again each woman is determined to investigate every tangent of the sonic atmosphere. Willfully and excitedly breaks down the margins of contemporary chamber and avant-garde, Courvoisier (who gets along rather well with many musical mavericks, notably Wadada Leo Smith ...

Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells

Read "Bone Bells" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
April 15, 2025

Tonally, these two artists offer what feels and sounds like an ideal fit. Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson are in no hurry with , their third collaboration as a duo, the title coming from a passage in the novel Trust, by Herman Diaz. There is gentleness mixed with a kind of dreaminess, interspersed with what feel like spasms of either delight or some sudden fury of exposition that must find an outlet. And like all duo ...

Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells

Read "Bone Bells" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
March 16, 2025

Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson! The combination of two such unconventional musicians is both rewarding, challenging and unnerving. The two women are radical disruptors. Their visions and their ambitions are vast. Their range of influences is dizzying. Their creativity seems limitless; their refusal to be conventional is absolute. Even the mechanics of their instruments are subject to their inventiveness. The extent of their comprehensive insurrection is not really acknowledged. Does their gender obscure it? In many ways, their ...

Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells

Read "Bone Bells" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
March 15, 2025

Given that Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson are two of the most distinctive instrumentalists in the world of jazz and improvised music, it is a particular treat to hear them together in a duo configuration, where the intimacy of the setting allows for a fuller appreciation of their virtuosity and empathetic sensibilities than is sometimes possible on their more ambitious group projects. Courvoisier's pianistic prowess can be astonishing, but on recordings like 2023's Chimaera (Intakt Records) it was her arranging ...

Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells

Read "Bone Bells" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 14, 2025

Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson are the boldest of musical artists. Bold and uncompromising, each with distinctive voices coming from different places. For Courvoisier, it is the classical music world and European chamber music that she mixes with the sounds of avant-garde jazz. Halvorson started out early with the violin, until the sound of the guitar of Jimi Hendrix pulled her into the freer and more hard rock realm. This move picked up momentum when she sat in ...

Album Review

Tomeka Reid Quartet: 3+3

by Chris May
May 6, 2024

Jazz cello has come a long way since Fred Katz's pioneering work with Chico Hamilton in the 1950s. Back then, the instrument was looked on as a novelty turn. In 2024, while still relatively avant-garde, its presence in a lineup is less exceptional. A pivotal point was American cellist Adbul Wadud's By Myself (Bishara, 1977), an album Tomeka Reid has acknowledged as an inspiration, and which may have played a part in her transition from classical music to jazz around ...