Jazz Articles about Matt Mitchell

About Matt Mitchell

Album Review

«Quest'album rappresenta la libertà che stavo cercando--dice Yuhan Su--una variante di me più raffinata e un messaggio sul periodo in cui ci troviamo». Giunta al quarto disco in un decennio d'attività professionale a New York, la vibrafonista taiwanese conferma d'essere una strumentista di prim'ordine e soprattutto una compositrice e leader innovativa, in equilibrio tra post-bop e avanguardia. I segni erano evidenti nel suo precedente album per la Sunnyside (City Animals, 2018) inciso con un quintetto differente, dove ...

Album Review

Dan Weiss: Even Odds

Read "Even Odds" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
March 20, 2024

To say that “It Is What It Is"--regarding drummer/composer Dan Weiss's feverish first track on the fervently episodic Even Odds--misses the whole point entirely. It could be anything. And within its spacious yet oddly claustrophobic three-and-a-half minutes, evolutions come and go in real time. And real time is a bitch if you cannot keep up. It is a wild statement but one that needs to be said, especially at the onset of music such as Even Odds. It ...

Album Review

Jon Irabagon's Outright!: Recharge the Blade

Read "Recharge the Blade" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 15, 2024

As with nearly all of saxophonist Jon Irabagon's music, the matter for debate is whether the listener needs to be as caffeinated as the musician. His brand of performance, going back two decades, has been one of constant motion and a bottomless cup of ideas. We heard this in Irabagon's contribution to the band Mostly Other People Do The Killing, his I Don't Hear Nothin' but the Blues series, and his collaboration with Joe Fonda in Barry Altschul's 3Dom Factor. ...

Album Review

Yuhan Su: Liberated Gesture

Read "Liberated Gesture" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
February 4, 2024

A remarkable feature of vibraphonist Yuhan Su's captivating fourth release as a leader, LIberated Gesture, is its cohesiveness and narrative quality. Even though only three tracks are part of a suite, common motifs and logical transitions interconnect all ten. This and the sublime balance between the emotional and the cerebral endows the work with its enchanting impressionism. Pianist Matt Mitchell sets an expectant mood on “Naked Swimmer" with his percussive and sparse chords. Mitchell, together with drummer Dan ...

Album Review

Matt Mitchell: Oblong Aplomb

Read "Oblong Aplomb" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
September 27, 2023

On Oblong Aplomb pianist Matt Mitchell pays homage to the drummers in his life. In a way, it can be seen as a follow-up to his debut Fiction (Pi Recordings, 2013). That album, a duet with stickman Ches Smith, originated from Mitchell's practice of warming up for gigs with Tim Berne's Snakeoil by running through a series of etudes he had written to warm up his pianistic muscles. Smith, a colleague in the band, began to play along and the ...

Album Review

Trickster: Live in Brooklyn

Read "Live in Brooklyn" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
August 27, 2023

If one is looking for an artist whose ambition and indefatigable spirit seemed destined to withstand the rigors of the Covid pandemic and its deleterious impact on the jazz community, guitarist Miles Okazaki could be near the top of the list. A prolific and well-recorded musician before 2020, he maintained a rigorously creative schedule after it as well, with four albums released between 2020 and 2022, not the least of which was Trickster's Dream (Pi Recordings, 2020), Okazaki's resilient reclamation ...

Radio & Podcasts

Matt Mitchell, Mark Murphy, Gregg Bendian and Others

by Jerome Wilson
May 31, 2023

This show features out-there music from Matt Mitchell and Janel Leppin, elastic vocals from Mark Murphy and June Tyson, and a tribute to comics creator Jack Kirby from percussionist Gregg Bendian. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Satoko Fujii Ma-Do “Ripple Mark" from Desert Ship (Not Two) 00:55 Dave Douglas “Whose Streets" from Marching Music (Greenleaf Music) 7:11 Host ...