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Jazz Articles about Michael Vlatkovich

About Michael Vlatkovich

Album Review

Saxophonist Rich Halley's music has, from the very beginning, exuded a steroid-like vibe. The sounds he makes may be able to move the Earth. It may incite a landslide. His tenor sax is as brawny as Sonny Rollins' sound, or Dexter Gordon's. And when he brings powerhouse trombonist reformist Michael Vlatkovich into the fold--a group tagged as the Rich Halley 4--the level of seismic output rises a few notches. A Distant Land, the group's eighth recording, stays in ...

Album Review

Rich Halley 4: Dusk And Dawn

Read "Dusk And Dawn" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
November 21, 2024

Alla testa del suo collaudatissimo quartetto, il settantasettenne tenorsassofonista dell'Oregon Rich Halley confeziona il suo nuovo album, solido e affidabile come sempre (incisione in quel di Portland nel novembre 2023), per quanto, alla lunga (questo dovrebbe essere il sesto capitolo del gruppo dal 2011, tutti su Pine Eagle, anche se nel caso in oggetto dopo un'attesa di nove anni), certi meccanismi, oliatissimi e del tutto congrui, non possano per forza di cose sorprendere più, il che ci fa dare una ...

Album Review

Rich Halley 4: Dusk And Dawn

Read "Dusk And Dawn" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 30, 2024

Rich Halley 4's Dusk and Dawn, is a noteworthy testament to the power of jazz as a narrative medium. The album captures the essence of transitional moments, both in time and sound, weaving a tapestry of intricate melodies and intriguing improvisational sequences. Halley, a veteran of the jazz scene with twenty-six recordings as a leader and collaborations with luminaries like Vinny Golia and Oliver Lake, brings his extensive experience to bear on this project. From the opening track, ...

Album Review

Michael Vlatkovich 5 Winds: Five of Us

Read "Five of Us" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
March 24, 2020

Ensemble (nello specifico quintetto) di soli fiati (non solo ance ma anche ottoni), come una volta era praticamente inaudito, dopo di che ci si sono misurati in diversi, e in tempi recenti quasi più nessuno: questa è la formazione a cui si rivolge il vulcanico trombonista losangelino Michael Vlatkovich per questo suo nuovo lavoro, peraltro inciso (a Toronto) nell'abbastanza lontano 2015. Vi trova posto una musica curata, parecchio scritta ma non per questo priva di singoli apporti in grado di ...

Multiple Reviews

Michael Vlatkovich: Mortality & Myrnofant's Kiss

by Angelo Leonardi
September 19, 2017

Michael Vlatkovich è un trombonista e compositore di St. Louis attivo dal 1973 a Los Angeles, parte di quella nicchia sperimentale presente dagli anni cinquanta nella West Coast. È membro regolare del Vinny Golia Large Ensemble e del Rob Blakeslee Quartet ma collabora anche con artisti di varie tendenze espressive: Bobby Bradford e Gerry Hemingway ma anche Solomon Burke, Ricky Lee Jones e Medeski, Martin & Wood. La sua recente attività discografica è documentata dall'etichetta pfMentum di Jeff Kaiser e ...

Album Review

Michael Vlatkovich: Mortality

Read "Mortality" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 11, 2016

Esteemed West Coast trombonist Michael Vlatkovich's second release with the large ensemble outfit Ensemblio, features a cast of largely, So. California artists including tuba performer Bill Roper and keyboardist Wayne Peet, who is also credited with the engineering duties on this pristinely recorded studio set. Nonetheless, Vlatkovich tosses more than just a few curveballs into the mix. The ensemble frequently subdivides into smaller factions during mini-motifs, but the program is an off-centered case study when considering how numerous ...

Album Review

Michael Vlatkovich: Mortality

by Dave Wayne
June 29, 2015

Wow. Where to start? Apropos of its title, Mortality is huge. Vast. Complex. Quixotic. Musically, it's a mega-ambitious work that fuses operatic vocals, several styles of jazz, heavily-scored contemporary classical music and flat-out improvisational wailing in the most appealing ways possible. Interestingly, Michael Vlatkovich, a West Coast trombone virtuoso and composer / improvisor of considerable merit, is a guy who devotes considerable time to small group projects of various types--most notably tenor saxophonist Rich Halley's quartet--plus his own septet with ...