Jazz Articles about Michael Bates

Michael Bates: A Fine Balance

by Troy Collins
June 22, 2006

The shadow of Dave Douglas hovers over bassist Michael Bates' debut recording. However, Douglas' influence is understandable, because both are faculty members at the Banff Center of the Arts. Despite the noticeable stylistic overlap, Bates contributes a strong program of originals that stretch beyond academic imitation.

Bates draws influence from a fairly novel place: Douglas' earliest writing from his days as a member of New and Used. The alternating pastoral melodies and angular urban funk of that seminal ...

Michael Bates' Outside Sources: A Fine Balance

by Jerry D'Souza
June 7, 2006

Michael Bates says that as a jazz musician, he takes a punk attitude to things. If anything, that is a refreshing attitude. When it comes down to music, he achieves a fine balance. He has all the right ingredients: a jazz sensibility, an open approach to classical music, a tingly edginess, and a sense of adventure.

Bates has a band that helps him along in no uncertain terms. Reed specialist Quinsin Nachoff is exciting as he lays bare unusual vistas ...

Michael Bates: A Fine Balance

by C. Michael Bailey
June 6, 2006

Call me biased, but jazz has the distinction of giving us some pretty good recordings on the whole. The downside to that is an ultimate dilution of the music for public consumption. What will one more performance of “'Round Midnight do for us? Michael Bates' A Fine Balance flies in the face of this product dilution. This music should be filed under “And Now for Something Different... and be proud of it. Perhaps best classified as avant-garde jazz, A Fine ...

Michael Bates: Outside Sources

by AAJ Staff
March 18, 2004

Outside Sources successfully confirms Michael Bates’ commitment to freeform exploration. Bates and bandmates Quinsin Nachoff and Mark Timmermans push most of music’s conventional boundaries and the blur of understanding inspires an hour of musical interest. “Tunisian” brings a pulsing start with Nachoff’s off-timed saxophone melody. One pictures a view from atop a camel’s back: while the bass-drum tandem of Bates and Timmermans takes on more than the two dimensions we hear. “Tunisian” reveals a beautiful displacement of rhythm ...

Michael Bates: Outside Sources

by Mark Corroto
January 11, 2004

This new recording by bassist Michael Bates has pop music appeal. I’m not talking about saccharine-covered smooth jazz elevator music, but a jazz record that hooks you and draws you in, with not so much catchy tunes as engaging ideas.

Bates and his fellow Canadian bandmates, drummer Mark Timmermans and saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff, favor a world music meets classical music at the jazz market. Sure, this combination has been cooked up before, it’s just that the flavors chosen ...