Jazz Articles about Nate Wooley

About Nate Wooley

Album Review

Trumpeter Nate Wooley is among the most exploratory and esoteric players/composers in creative improvisation along with fellow trumpeter/cornetists Rob Mazurek and Peter Evans. Wooley's catalog ranges from the wildly free The Nows (Clean Feed Records, 2011), a quartet that included Ken Vandermark and Paul Lyton, to the Bojan Vuleti composed chamber work, Atemwende (Ignoring Gravity Music, 2013) with the Mivos String Quartet). But Wooley's real eclecticism has shone in his works as a leader--particularly in recent years--with the minimalist solo ...

Album Review

Nate Wooley: Seven Storey Mountain V

Read "Seven Storey Mountain V" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
June 28, 2016

Nate Wooley has a fairly traditional early background having played trumpet in his father's big band as a teenager. His departure from convention was quite radical as he went on to work with the likes of John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Ken Vandermark and Evan Parker. Wooley is one of an innovative strain of trumpeters who view composing for their instrument as something more holistic to a given environment and period. Wooley's trumpet becomes the vessel of time, shape-shifting, mutating and ...

Multiple Reviews

Nate Wooley Makes America Great Again

by Mark Corroto
June 1, 2016

In his excellent book of literary and cultural criticism, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, Kevin Young describes the term Jazz as both a noun and a verb. He further explains that jazz from the time of its origins through, let's say the 1980s, was a word used to describe action. Such as the actions and creations of Armstrong, Ellington, Davis, and Coltrane. But when it ceased its movement it became a noun, or a word to identify ...

Album Review

Nate Wooley: (Dance to) the Early Music

Read "(Dance to) the Early Music" reviewed by Luca Canini

by Luca Canini
February 8, 2016

Marzo di due anni fa. Nate Wooley e il suo quintetto sul palco dell'Auditorium di Piazza della Libertà, ospiti (assai graditi) di Bergamo Jazz. Ultimi scampoli di concerto, tempo di bis: Wooley posa la tromba e annuncia: «Prima di salutarvi eseguiremo un paio di composizioni di Wynton Marsalis». Incredulità in sala. «Che ha detto? Marsalis?», chiede sgomitando al vicino uno spettatore due file più sotto. Esatto: Wynton Marsalis; quel Wynton Marsalis. Il più scapigliato e avanguardista dei trombettisti che rilegge ...

Album Review

Nate Wooley: Battle Pieces

Read "Battle Pieces" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 2, 2015

Someday trumpeter Nate Wooley is going to sell-out, abandon his principles, and make a smooth jazz record. He will give in to the pull of commercial success and create a disc of elevator music which can be played, but taken no heed of. I jest, because everything he creates necessitates the ear and mind's consideration. Wooley is a member of the new generation of trumpet players, like Peter Evans, Taylor Ho Bynum, and cornetist Kirk Knuffke who move ...

Album Review

Nate Wooley/Hugo Antunes/Chris Corsano: Malus

by John Sharpe
July 16, 2014

Named musician of the year in the El Intruso 2013 critics poll, trumpeter Nate Wooley looks to be on a roll. That's in spite, or perhaps that should be because, of being so hard to pin down. His output stretches from experimental solo works such as Trumpet/Amplifier (Smeraldina-Rima 2011) and The Almond (Pogus Productions, 2011), to his more tradition-orientated quintet on (Put Your) Hands Together (Clean Feed, 2011) and (Sit In) The Throne of Friendship (Clean Feed, 2013). Malus pitches ...

Album Review

Nate Wooley Sextet: (Sit in) The Throne of Friendship

Read "(Sit in) The Throne of Friendship" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero

by Vincenzo Roggero
February 19, 2014

Si respira aria di festa in (Sit In) The Throne of Friendship ultima fatica discografica del trombettista e compositore Nate Wooley. Si avverte quella sensazione un po' démodé che solo il circo o il luna park sono in grado di offrire, tra momenti di eccitazione per le novità o per le mirabolanti avventure promesse, rassicuranti sensazioni dalle cose che non cambiano, profumi invitanti che sanno d'altri tempi. La strumentazione è insolita con quattro strumenti dai registri gravi-- ...