Jazz Articles about Newman Taylor Baker

Rich Halley, Matthew Shipp, Michael Bisio, Newman Taylor Baker: The Shape Of Things

by Karl Ackermann
December 11, 2020

In 2019, with almost two-dozen albums as a leader, Rich Halley broke his twenty-year streak of recording without a pianist as part of his various formations. It was Matthew Shipp who altered the saxophonist's course on Terra Incognita (Pine Eagle Records) which featured Shipp's trio with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. That successful project leads to The Shape of Things, which picks up and moves forward from where that stimulating and satisfying album left off.

Rich Halley: The Shape Of Things

by Dan McClenaghan
November 26, 2020

Nobody rips it up like Portland, Oregon-based tenor saxophonist Rich Halley. Whether he is playing with his West Coast crews on sets like The Literature (Pine Eagle Records, 2018) or The Outlier (Pine Eagle Records, 2016), or recording with his New York City compatriots on Terra Incognita (Pine Eagle Record, 2019). And now we have--with, again, the New Yorkers--The Shape of Things, where Halley continues to prove he can be counted on to shake the walls and rattle the windows ...

Matthew Shipp: The Unidentifiable

by Dan McClenaghan
September 28, 2020

We can talk about a Bud Powell school of the piano trio, or a Bill Evans school of the piano trio, but maybe it is time to start talking about Mathew Shipp's trio school, with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. Shipp has been around the jazz scene for three decades. He has developed a distinctive voice. He sounds like no-one else. If you can't start your own school under those circumstances, then when can you?

Matthew Shipp Trio: The Unidentifiable

by Karl Ackermann
September 1, 2020

With each successive project, the prolific Matthew Shipp takes the art form to seemingly unstainable heights and then persists in pushing the bar further along. Shipp began his recording career with a trio project, Circular Temple (Quinton Records, 1992) featuring William Parker and Whit Dickey, two artists that have retained close professional ties to the pianist/composer. Shipp has recorded a dozen trio albums with seven personnel line ups. His thirteenth project in that format, The Unidentifiable, features bassist Michael Bisio ...

Carl Grubbs 4tet: Stepping Around the Giant

by Derek Taylor
February 25, 2003

Carl Grubbs is living, breathing proof of the adage “live isn’t fair.” Like so many of his peers, he’s largely fallen through the cracks over the years- a casualty of the public ambivalence that usually signals the lot of creative improvising musicians. But it wasn’t always so; back in the early Seventies with his brother Earl he made a valiant push for the big time through a contract on the Muse label. Three records later the debilitating weight of commerical ...

Fred Hopkins/Diedre Murray Quartet: Prophecy

by AAJ Staff
December 1, 1999

In the late '80s, Fred Hopkins and Diedre Murray made an effective duo. Their unusual combination of bass and cello allowed for some interesting musical statements. Shortly thereafter they formed a quartet to expand this sound. The new members: Brandon Ross (guitar) and Newman Baker (drums). All four members played at one time or another in Henry Threadgill's groups. The stated idea behind the 1990 recording Prophecy emphasizes continuity and fluidity of musical thought.

Within a fairly straight-ahead setting, soloists ...

Fred Hopkins & Diedre Murray Quartet: Prophecy

by Glenn Astarita
November 1, 1999

Sadly, the inimitable bassist Fred Hopkins passed away on Thursday, January 7, 1999. Fred Hopkins was one of the busiest bassists in Chicago's creative music scene and often the bassist of choice for countless recording projects with dozens of performers too numerous to cite here. On the recently released Prophecy which was recorded in 1990 we get a glimpse of the much heralded Fred Hopkins/Diedre Murray Quartet. According to Ms. Murray, 'This was the first recording of a quartet that ...