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Jazz Articles about Mary Halvorson
Mary Halvorson, Josh Sinton, Pat Thomas & The Big Room
by Maurice Hogue
Guitarist Mary Halvorson's new double album marks her debut for Nonesuch. You'll hear a sample from em>Amaryllis and Belladonna. You'll also get a taste of Slovenian guitarist Samo Salamon's terrific new recording Pure And Simple with the great Arild Andersen and Rakalam Bob Moses. Other new trio sets come from baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton and the international threesome of English pianist Pat Thomas and Swedes saxophonist Sture Ericson and drummer Raymond Strid, France's The Big Room & Germany's Blechbarrage. Quartets ...
Continue ReadingMyra Melford: For The Love Of Fire And Water
by John Sharpe
Inspired by artist Cy Twombly, pianist Myra Melford has produced a superb album which combines notated signposts with unbridled exchanges. She's helped by an all star agglomeration comprising some of New York's most accomplished instrumentalists: guitarist Mary Halvorson, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Susie Ibarra. As might be expected of the city's brightest talents, their paths have crossed on multiple occasions, but never in this particular permutation until they appeared as part of a Melford residency at ...
Continue ReadingFestival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville 2022
by Mike Chamberlain
Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville Various Venues Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada May 19-22, 2022 The weekend of May 19-22, was the first time since 2019 that artistic director Michel Levasseur and the team at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV, or Victo, as it is popularly known) were able to mount a full program of concerts and other presentations (sound installations, films) without tight pandemic restrictions. This meant that, ...
Continue ReadingMary Halvorson: Alchemist Supreme
by Doug Collette
Produced and mixed by John Dieterich, with complementary cover art of paintings by DM Stith, the two companion pieces constituting the Nonesuch Records debut by Brooklyn-based guitarist, composer and MacArthur fellow Mary Halvorson restore truth to the often-cliched phrase 'the complete package.' Amaryllis features master improvisers in the company of a string quartet rendering arrangements devised to continually freshen explorations of the material. Meanwhile, Belladonna is a set of challenging compositions written specifically for the guitar in conjunction with that ...
Continue ReadingMyra Melford's Fire and Water Quintet: For The Love Of Fire And Water
by Mark Corroto
While the now infamous quote “writing about music is like dancing about architecture" may befit jazz criticism, writing music about painting is actually achievable. Proof of that is pianist Myra Melford's For the Love of Fire and Water; her quintet sets out to perform music inspired by the American painter Cy Twombly's (1928-2011) Bay of Gaeta drawings “For the Love of Fire and Water." Melford has taken inspiration from visual artists in the past, specifically on her solo ...
Continue ReadingTomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March
by Jerome Wilson
This is the second release by drummer and vibraphonist Tomas Fujiwara's unique double trio with himself and Gerald Cleaver on drums, Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook on guitar and Taylor Ho Bynum and Ralph Alessi on brass, a group that can be configured as two trios, three pairs of instruments or something in between. The sound of the resulting combinations can come out ambient or raucous, but tends towards an angular prog-jazz fusion sound, that can pack the punch of ...
Continue ReadingTomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March
by Mark Corroto
Drummer, composer and vibraphonist Tomas Fujiwara did not set out to rebut the saying “familiarity breeds contempt," but March from his sextet Triple Double does just that. His combination of three pairs of double instruments—guitarists Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook, cornet/trumpets Taylor Ho Bynum and Ralph Alessi, plus double drummers Gerald Cleaver and Tomas Fujiwara himself—creates respect, the opposite of contempt. The harmonious and organic nature of this music, first heard on their self-titled debut album Triple Double (Firehouse 12, ...
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