Jazz Articles about Michael Jefry Stevens
About Michael Jefry Stevens
Instrument: Piano
Article Coverage | Calendar | Albums | Photos | Similar ArtistsConference Call: Prism
by Mark Corroto
Conference Call is a quartet, but could also be described as a trio+ because the core members—saxophonist and bass clarinetist Gebhard Ullmann, pianist Michael Jefry Stevens, and bassist Joe Fonda—have been touring and recording together for more than two decades. The plus moniker derives from the quartet's interchange of drummers. Early on, the seat was occupied by Matt Wilson, then Han Bennink, Gerry Hemingway, and George Schuller. The quartet's latest edition is Swiss drummer Dieter Ulrich, who you might have ...
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by Jerome Wilson
Most jazz groups that stay together for a long time, such as The Modern Jazz Quartet or The Art Ensemble of Chicago, achieve a certain prominence. It is a surprise then to realize that the lesser-known band, Conference Call, has been around since 1999 and is here releasing its eighth album. The group's core members are saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann, pianist Michael Jefry Stevens and bassist Joe Fonda. They have had a succession of drummers over the years; Matt ...
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by Dan McClenaghan
Prism, by the band Conference Call, sounds, on the set's opening tune, “F.J.D.," like a bunch of guys who might mug you: a brash, turbulent, confrontational crowd with a “we-don't-take-no-mess-from-nobody" approach to making music. Credit reedman Gebhard Ullmann with his grouchy, working-man-roused-from-his-afternoon-nap tenor sax sound, and the powerful bass (which you can feel in your bones) of Joe Fonda, accompanied by the aggressive clamor of, Dieter Ulrich--the group's third drummer in its twenty year tenure—along with pianist Michael Jefry Stevens' ...
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by Mike Jurkovic
During the roiling twenty years that Conference Call has willfully crisscrossed the broad Atlantic, the individual drummers haven't participated in all of the round trips. The pre-2020 drummer rotation was Matt Wilson, who left the band prior to its first tour in 2001 to prep for the delivery of triplets, Han Bennink, George Schuller, and Gerry Hemingway. But the core players remain. As does the key aesthetic: creative art as spontaneous geometry. So how you fit the individual pieces together ...
read moreMichael Jefry Stevens: Red's Blues
by Maurizio Zerbo
Il dinamismo culturale di Michael Jefry Stevens ci ha abituati a progetti diversi, dal free-jazz al mainstream senza soluzione di continuità. Il musicista statunitense ha elevato a regola un principio aureo del jazz: la capacità di trasformazione della propria cifra espressiva, per rivelare di continuo nuove sfaccettature stilistiche. In questo CD live se ne apprezzano le doti compositive orientate verso lo swing, ancorate alle solide basi del jazz. Si spazia dalle reminiscenze monkiane del terzo brano ...
read moreMichael Jefry Stevens: Live at Streamside
by Maurizio Zerbo
Ecco un grande CD regalatoci da un artista riservato, meritevole di ben altre attenzioni mediatiche. È un concentrato di buon gusto e passione, con pregevoli interventi solistici, sempre lineari e cantabili. A differenza di altri colleghi di livello, Michael Jefry Stevens guarda solo alle ragioni del cuore, per realizzare album all'insegna della poetica progettualità. Oltre alla pregevole cura per le dinamiche, emerge la creativa disposizione timbrica messa in campo dal sessantanovenne musicista. Inediti contrappunti per violino-voce-vibrafono impreziosiscono una raffinata cifra ...
read morePoker di Michael Jefry Stevens
by Giuseppe Segala
Il pianista, compositore, teorico e didatta Michael Jefry Stevens ha impresso il proprio significativo contributo al jazz contemporaneo attraverso un lavoro che dura da circa quarant'anni, associato a un ampio ventaglio di musicisti e a formazioni di grande interesse, tra cui Mosaic Sextet e Liquid Time con Dave Douglas, The Fonda/Stevens Group con Joe Fonda, Conference Call Quartet con Gebhard Ullmann. I quattro CD in esame illustrano la recente produzione del pianista, dando una visione articolata del suo lavoro ...
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