Jazz Articles about Mary Halvorson

About Mary Halvorson

Album Review

Ben Goldberg: Everything Happens To Be.

Read "Everything Happens To Be." reviewed by John Chacona

by John Chacona
June 18, 2021

The music of Ben Goldberg seems to come from a place outside of time--or maybe it comes from several times simultaneously. Maybe it's the instruments he chooses; while the clarinet family has been on the comeback trail in jazz for a quarter century, it's a sound that invariably invokes the New Orleans of a century ago. That's especially true when Goldberg picks up the mellow, woody, Albert-system E-flat instrument on “Cold Weather." That tune's sweet melancholy wobbles perilously close to ...

Album Review

Mary Halvorson's Code Girl: Artlessly Falling

Read "Artlessly Falling" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
December 23, 2020

Guitarist Mary Halvorson has displayed her playing and composing talents in a number of settings, but this second release by her song-based band, Code Girl, is one of the most focused and intense things she has ever done. Halvorson and her quintet constructed music around eight of her own poems, each written in a specific poetic form. The results are fluid and improvisational art songs, in the manner of complex but catchy British art rock groups of the ...

Radio & Podcasts

New Jazz From Around The World

by Bob Osborne
December 3, 2020

In this episode of World of Jazz, we offer a truly trans-global selection of music with exciting new releases from Italian, German, American, Swedish, Japanese, Argentinian, and Australian artists. There are selections from Marco Rottoli, Marcus Klossek, Mary Halvorson, Bjorn Ingelstam, Emi Makabe, Javier Subatin, and Cyclone Trio. Playlist Marco Rottoli Trio “Acacia" from New Years Eve (AMP Music and Records) 00:00 Marcus Klossek Electric Trio “Like 4 Minutes Ago" from Time Was Now (DoubleMoon/Challenge Records) 07:03 Mary ...

Album Review

Susan Alcorn Quintet: Pedernal

Read "Pedernal" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
December 1, 2020

Pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn has achieved the enviable feat of commanding her own instrumental niche in the jazz world. Much like Toots Thielemans' harmonica, Gary Versace's accordion or Béla Fleck's banjo, she seems to have a unique role all to herself, at least until her substantial talents eventually spawn a host of imitators. From her beginnings playing traditional country and western in the 1980s, she has branched out considerably, in the last decade forging creative partnerships in the free ...

Album Review

Mary Halvorson: Artlessly Falling

Read "Artlessly Falling" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 26, 2020

Not content with having scaled the heights of the guitar pantheon, with the second release from Code Girl, Mary Halvorson also cements her place in a unique genre of her own design. As befits someone who has taken to heart Anthony Braxton's dictum to find her own musical voice, she presents something which is part art song, part indie rock, part mainstream jazz and part free form, but all Halvorson. Mirroring the progression of her trio, first to ...

Album Review

Mary Halvorson: Artlessly Falling

Read "Artlessly Falling" reviewed by Franz A. Matzner

by Franz A. Matzner
November 7, 2020

Released by Mary Halvorson's Code Girl, Artlessly Falling presents eight new compositions, each of which is structured around a specific poetic form with accompanying lyrics/poems by Halvorson herself. The forms represent a significant diversity of cultural origins and eras, including Japanese Tanka, 12th century Sestina, French Villanelle, and Malay Pantoum. With each of the above sources arguably requiring deep study to become well-versed in, this central conceit might feel like a daring experiment, hubris, or a bit of ...

Multiple Reviews

Mary Halvorson At 40

by John Eyles
November 6, 2020

Guitarist Mary Halvorson enrolled to study Biology at Wesleyan University, but she soon dropped the subject after sitting in on one of saxophonist Anthony Braxton's music classes there, instead studying jazz. By November 2004, shortly after her twenty-fourth birthday, Halvorson played guitar at the Royal Festival Hall, London, as a member of Braxton's quintet, the first of many appearances with the saxophonist. In addition, Halvorson played with or--from 2008--led a burgeoning number of groups, often including other Braxton alumni such ...