Jazz Articles about Michael Blake

Michael Blake: Blake Tartare

by Sean Patrick Fitzell
July 5, 2004

Saxophonist/composer Michael Blake has led an array of unique projects. His latest CD, Blake Tartare, finds him fronting a quartet with young Danish improvisers Soren Kjaergaard on Fender Rhodes and piano, Jonas Westergaard on bass, and Kresten Osgood on drums. The small group pushes Blake’s horn to the forefront, while the sparse arrangements have a fluidity that is loose without being sloppy.

The short and quiet “Flipper” opens the set, its spacious melody and gentle rhythm section accompaniment foreshadowing what ...

Ben Allison & Medicine Wheel: Buzz

by Rob Cline
June 1, 2004

Despite its moderate tempo, “Respiration," the opening track on Buzz, sets an insistent tone that drives the album’s first three tracks. Bassist Ben Allison penned all three charts, which feature tight, energetic ensemble playing by the six-piece band as well as plenty of open space for improvisation, including a textured piano solo by Frank Kimbrough on “Respiration" and a blistering tenor solo by either Michael Blake or Ted Nash (the promo copy of the disc does not specify) on “Buzz." ...

Ben Allison and Medicine Wheel: Buzz

by John Kelman
May 21, 2004

On the fourth album with his group Medicine Wheel bassist Ben Allison continues to push the boundaries of structured music with a programme of six originals and one Beatles cover. With a straightforward sound that belies a richer complexity, Allison continues to present invention masked in simplicity, combining intelligence with emotional depth.

Buzz opens with Allison’s “Respiration,” a 9/4 piece that is insistent, with simple interweaving bass, piano and electric piano parts laying the groundwork for a snake-like horn theme ...

Ben Allison: Buzz

by Jim Santella
May 3, 2004

Ben Allison and Medicine Wheel have a history of going against the grain, with their provocative form of New York jazz. Allison has said that “a composition should create a landscape in which a musician can freely explore and find an individual voice.”

With its fourth release, however, Medicine Wheel turns collective and moves its circle closer to the center. Voices move together as one. Pleasant harmony and smooth rhythms support simple melodies. Their “New York buzz” ...

Michael Blake

by AAJ Staff
November 29, 2003

Submitted on behalf of Sean Patrick Fitzell With his eyebrows tightly knit, saxophonist Michael Blake played with intensity and assurance, absorbed in the musical moment he created at a recent gig. True to the group's name, Free Association, he led it through the new composition “Conquistador", based on an old Chico Hamilton vamp, to a section of soloing, then spontaneously shifted into “Surfing Sahara" from last year's Elevated (Knitting Factory), before closing with the original tune. The ...

Elevate Me: Michael Blake's New York World-Jazz

by Todd R. Brown
October 1, 2003

Imagine Duke Ellington's orchestra swinging by camelback caravan through the marketplace of Tangier, Morocco, or Miles Davis and crew funky-tonkin' up the Mekong River in Southeast Asia, and you'll get an idea of what saxophonist and composer Michael Blake's approach to jazz is. Blake, who plays this year's JVC Jazz Festiva in New York on June 24 with Ben Allison & Medicine Wheel, takes the tenors of Ben Webster and Lester Young as pivot points, particularly in the ...

Michael Blake: Elevated

by David Adler
March 1, 2002

Michael Blake opts for a simple quartet aesthetic on this aptly named release. The lineup is a Jazz Composers Collective who’s who: Ben Allison on bass, Frank Kimbrough on piano, Mike Mazor on drums. Some of the tunes will be familiar to those who’ve heard Blake at the Collective’s New York concert series over the last couple of years.There’s an Eastern tinge to some tracks — particularly “In the Arms of Ali," “Surfing Sahara," and “Addis Ababa." Kimbrough ...