Jazz Articles about Nathan Eklund

About Nathan Eklund

Album Review

Bobby Sanabria: Arsenio and Beyond

Read "Arsenio and Beyond" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 9, 2026

Much of the music on Arsenio and Beyond was written by the trailblazing Cuban composer Arsenio Rodriguez, a master of the mandolin-like Cuban tres guitar who is credited among other innovations with creating the musical design that became known as son montuno. Rodriguez, drummer and bandleader Bobby Sanabria writes, was “the true Father of Mambo and Son Montuno," without whom “there is no salsa, Afro-Cuban jazz, or, many would even argue, rock or funk." Sanabria and his Multiverse ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Infinite Connections

Read "Infinite Connections" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 3, 2024

Some eighty-odd years ago a handful of trailblazers led by saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie changed the vocabulary of jazz, introducing bebop as a successor to trad jazz and swing and radically transforming the music's landscape and perspective. Their terminology remained pretty much intact for a number of years, with partisans choosing a path between the diverse genres, until at last the very definition of jazz began to move in new directions with newcomers such as cool jazz, ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Infinite Connections

Read "Infinite Connections" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
August 19, 2024

Su queste pagine abbiamo seguito il percorso discografico di Jihye Lee a partire dal suo esordio (April, 2017) ed il successivo Daring Mind (Motéma 2021), co-prodotto con Darcy James Argue. La collaborazione con quest'ultimo si ripropone anche nel nuovo Infinite Connections, registrato nell'ottobre 2023, che evidenzia un significativo passo avanti nella sua sintesi tra jazz e proprie radici musicali. Che la bandleader fosse un talento eccezionale è apparso chiaro dalla rapidità con cui ha padroneggiato le tecniche ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Infinite Connections

Read "Infinite Connections" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
July 22, 2024

One of the most ambitious composers working exclusively in the large-ensemble format, Jihye Lee is now offering her third release, coming on the heels of the well-received April (Self-released, 2017) and Daring Mind (Motéma Music, 2021). Lee is a fearless artist with a seemingly limitless imagination, with a multiplicity of themes and rhythms swirling through her complex, densely-layered compositions. And as always, she once again has a terrific group of colleagues to help bring her rich, multi-hued vision to life. ...

Album Review

Erica Seguine: The New Day Bends Light

Read "The New Day Bends Light" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
March 11, 2024

Impegnandosi nel ruolo di produttore, Darcy James Argue dà particolare considerazione al debutto discografico di quest'ensemble, fondato nel 2011 a New York dalle compositrici Erica Seguine e Shon Baker. La prima è anche arrangiatrice e guida dell'orchestra, la seconda entra nel cast come sassofonista. Dopo varie esibizioni in locali chiave della Big Apple, le due leader hanno selezionato sette composizioni originali dal loro repertorio, incidendole con un ampio organico comprendente talentuosi solisti della metropoli. Alcuni di essi ...

Album Review

Erica Seguine/Shon Baker Orchestra: The New Day Bends Light

Read "The New Day Bends Light" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 2, 2023

The New Day Bends Light, the debut recording by the twelve-year-old Erica Seguine/Shon Baker Orchestra, is interesting on a number of levels, not the least of which is emotional. The leaders and their twenty-one piece ensemble are clearly committed to the music and do their best to breathe life into each of the album's seven numbers, three of which were written by Seguine, three by Baker and the other ("Ose Shalom") by Nurit Hirsh. Aside from that, there is the ...

Album Review

Yu Nishiyama Big Band: A Lotus In The Mud

Read "A Lotus In The Mud" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
November 21, 2022

Una giovane e talentuosa bandleader aggiorna la tradizione delle grandi orchestratrici del Sol Levante, da Toshiko Akiyoshi a Miho Hazama. La musica presente nel debutto di Yu Nishiyama va oltre un puntuale modern mainstream per big band ma colpisce per la fantasiosa scrittura, caratterizzata da percorsi ricchi di svolte, tra aristocratici contrasti timbrici, poderosi ensemble e trascinanti interventi solisti. Una visione orchestrale matura, ricca di tensione e dalla bella carica spettacolare. Trasferitasi da Yokohama negli Stati Uniti ...