Jazz Articles about Michael Formanek

About Michael Formanek

Album Review

Michael Formanek has never been content to anchor a bandstand and call it a career. Over decades of work--from sideman stints with Stan Getz and Joe Henderson to the long-running Thumbscrew trio with Mary Halvorson and Tomas Fujiwara--he has operated as a composer and architect, building rooms rather than merely inhabiting them. New Digs recorded over two days in Torres Vedras, Portugal, stands as an ambitious project via this seven-piece trans-Atlantic ensemble shaped by a precise sonic design.

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Michael Formanek: aka the Stinger

by Ludovico Granvassu
April 16, 2026

An invitation to perform at the 2023 Guimarães Jazz Festival in Portugal gave bassist and composer Michael Formanek the perfect opportunity to explore the sonic possibilities of the organ--an instrument he first loved in the rock bands of his Bay Area youth, and later rediscovered in the visionary works of Olivier Messiaen.Alexander Hawkins proves an ideal partner on Hammond B3, alongside two longtime collaborators from the trio Thumbscrew--Mary Halvorson on guitar and Tomas Fujiwara on drums--joined by João ...

Album Review

Myra Melford: Splash

Read "Splash" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
November 24, 2025

Affermatasi ormai oltre trent'anni fa come uno dei nomi nuovi, più creativi e identitari, della scena jazzistica internazionale, Myra Melford, pur assumendo una posizione a volte periferica (defilata?) rispetto all'agone specifico (ogni grande artista ha anche bisogno dei propri spazi di riflessione), ha confermato con regolarità quel primo input, come questo suo nuovo, bellissimo lavoro non fa che ribadire una volta di più. Sono del resto con lei due autentici giganti dei rispettivi strumenti, in un caso (Ches ...

Album Review

Myra Melford: Splash

by John Sharpe
August 21, 2025

Pianist Myra Melford returns to the classic piano trio format for the first time since The Guest House (Enja, 2011), her acclaimed outing with Trio M with Mark Dresser and Matt Wilson. This time, the lineup is no less formidable: bassist Michael Formanek and drummer/vibraphonist Ches Smith--both commanding improvisers and bandleaders--join her for a set that reaffirms the trio as a site for invention rather than formula. As with her 2022 quintet project For the Love of Fire ...

Album Review

Jon Irabagon: Server Farm

Read "Server Farm" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero

by Vincenzo Roggero
April 21, 2025

Quando un agitatore musicale come Jon Irabagon, mente tra le più aperte, corrosive, imprevedibili e significative della scena jazzistica statunitense mette insieme un tentetto da paura per esplorare fatti e misfatti dell'intelligenza artificiale, curiosità e aspettative sono ai massimi livelli. E questo Server Farm le soddisfa pienamente, ennesima prova della grandezza di un musicista onnivoro in grado di esaltare ed esaltarsi in tutta la gamma di formazioni messe in campo negli ultimi quindici anni. Dal sax solo di ...

Album Review

Jon Irabagon: Server Farm

Read "Server Farm" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
March 7, 2025

Artificial Intelligence would have a hard job pinning down saxophonist Jon Irabagon's defining characteristics. When a player is as talented as Irabagon, who can turn his hand to almost any style, sometimes the challenge is to find a focus that stimulates. On Server Farm, Irabagon has taken the notion of AI and the ever increasing prevalence of the digital world as his casus belli. Not that he uses AI himself in composing the album, rather as the PR reveals, he ...

Album Review

Jon Irabagon: Server Farm

Read "Server Farm" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 28, 2025

"The times they are a-changin.'" Bob Dylan said that in 1964. He was right. In 2025, they are still changing, perhaps most notably with the emergence of artificial intelligence. That previously slow creep--outlined so accurately in Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, paired with Stanely Kubrick's movie of the same name--will build to a tipping point leading to an implosion. The takeover is inevitable. The only way to address it is through the arts. This is ...