Home » Jazz Articles » Mike LeDonne
Jazz Articles about Mike LeDonne
Mike LeDonne: It's All Your Fault
by Jack Bowers
Even though listed on only four tracks, organist Mike LeDonne's superlative Groover Quartet performs on every one of the nine selections on LeDonne's admirable new recording, It's All Your Fault--and that's a good thing, as each member of the quartet (LeDonne, tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, guitarist Peter Bernstein, drummer Joe Farnsworth) is an accomplished soloist and ardent team player. On the album's remaining tracks, the quartet is assimilated into LeDonne's seventeen- member big band, a taut and high-powered unit that ...
Continue ReadingCory Weeds: O Sole Mio! Music From The Motherland
by Jack Bowers
O Sole Mio!, the latest in a series of splendid albums by Canadian-bred saxophonist/entrepreneur Cory Weeds, is subtitled “Music from the Motherland"-- in other words, Italy, which, presumably, is Woods' ancestral home. Whatever the case, Woods' blue-chip quintet focuses for the most part on music born in Italy or written by Italian-Americans including Henry Mancini, Nino Rota, Pat Martino, Chick Corea and Dodo Marmarosa. To allay any doubt that all would go well, Weeds invited the superlative tenor saxophonist Eric ...
Continue ReadingCory Weeds: O Sole Mio! Music From The Motherland
by Pierre Giroux
Even in these trying and uncertain times, there are some professional creative artists who recognize the need to “carry on" and make the best of a bad situation. Saxophonist Cory Weeds is one of those individuals. He is releasing O Sole Mio! Music From The Motherland on his own label, CellarMusic. Weeds has merged his talents as an alto saxophonist with Mike LeDonne's Groover Quartet featuring LeDonne on Hammond B3 organ, Eric Alexander on tenor saxophone, Peter Bernstein on guitar ...
Continue ReadingThe New York All-Stars: Live Encounter
by Chris May
Some things live forever and take-no-quarter hard bop is one of them... If you time travelled back to New York City circa 1958 and wandered into the Half Note or Five Spot, Live Encounter contains the sort of music you might have heard. Tough, emotionally-rich jazz with no-fuss head arrangements, extrovert horn solos and a propulsive rhythm section. The album, recorded at London's Pizza Express Jazz Club in 2018, will appeal to anyone who keeps their Hank Mobley and Tina ...
Continue ReadingMike LeDonne & Vincent Herring Quartet Live at BIMHUIS Amsterdam
by BIMHUIS
Superior groove jazz by the well-established Hammond B3-organist Mike LeDonne and saxophonist Vincent Herring. Mike LeDonne has made his mark alongside jazz giants such as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman and Sonny Rollins. Alto saxophonist Vincent Herring came up in Horace Silver's band and is regarded as one of the most important successors of Charlie Parker and Julian “Cannonball" Adderley. Following his jazz guitar studies in the US, Martien Oster has played with outstanding performers such as Larry Coryell ...
Continue ReadingTony Adamo: Was Out Jazz Zone Mad
by Nicholas F. Mondello
The translation of “Adam" from Hebrew--from which the surname Adamo springs--means from the “ground" or “soil." It also derives from the Hebrew word for red, a la “red clay." Perhaps that is why any work from Tony Adamo is rare earth--gritty, and flaming crimson. Was Out Jazz Zone Mad Adamo's latest, his first for Ropeadope, is all of those things and more.Adamo is the Heavyweight Champion of “hipspokenword," wherein lingo meets vocalizing at the corner of jazz and ...
Continue ReadingTony Adamo: Was Out Jazz Zone Mad
by Chris M. Slawecki
Some African cultures preserved their history not by the written but by the spoken word, kept by oral cultural historians known as griots. On Was Out Jazz Zone Mad, vocalist Tony Adamo aspires to serve in this same role, as a verbal historian of both official and unofficial African-American jazz and blues culture. This type of jazz jive might wear quickly thin but Adamo writes about jazz and jazz musicians with such detailed intimacy and vision that his words snap, ...
Continue Reading
