Jazz Articles about Nick Fraser

About Nick Fraser

Album Review

Nicola Miller’s Living Things: Spit!

by Mike Jurkovic
August 27, 2026

On the street, they would say that maritime Nova Scotia's rogue saxophonist Nicola Miller's rhizome-like way with her quintet, Living Things, or her prog jazz as a concept, is “some crazy sh*#!." But it need be said nicer at a global concern like All About Jazz. For as gentlemen and even gentler ladies, we are sworn to public service and to call a spade a spade. So Spit! is a spade. Hands down. Why? Well, the crickety landslide ...

Radio & Podcasts

Nick Fraser: Still Screaming Into The Snare Drum

by Lawrence Peryer
May 23, 2026

Today, The Tonearm's needle lands on Toronto drummer and composer Nick Fraser.Nick Fraser is one of the most distinctive voices in Canadian improvised music. He has played with Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, and William Parker, and has led projects that range from raw free jazz to something much harder to name.His latest record, Areas, just dropped on Elastic Recordings. It's a trio date with saxophonist Tony Malaby and pianist Kris Davis. Electroacoustic interludes by composer John ...

Radio & Podcasts

Mal Wadron, Sam Rivers, Nick Fraser, Meredith Bates, and much more

by Lawrence Peryer
May 21, 2026

An hour of creative music where archival recordings and new releases share equal footing. Irreversible Entanglements and a newly surfaced 1984 Mal Waldron-Sam Rivers improvisation open the show; Alabaster DePlume, a Daunik Lazro-Joëlle Léandre-Paul Lovens trio, Work Money Death, and Nick Fraser carry the middle sets; and Vancouver composer Meredith Bates closes it out with music from her new album The Observer Effect. Playlist Irreversible Entanglements “Juntos Vencemos" from Future Present Past (Impulse!) 00:00 Mal Waldron & Sam ...

Album Review

Lina Allemano: The Diptychs

Read "The Diptychs" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
January 23, 2026

Di origine canadese, la trombettista Lina Allemano distribuisce la propria attività artistica tra le scene di Toronto e Berlino, manifestando significative sfaccettature di un'attitudine che spazia con spregiudicato talento in vari ambiti della musica e dell'improvvisazione di oggi. Il quartetto protagonista di questo The Diptychs è la sua realizzazione più longeva e la più prolifica in termini di CD pubblicati. Il primo documento registrato dalla formazione, uscito come tutti i suoi lavori con l'etichetta autogestita Lumo Records, risale al 2006. ...

Album Review

Lina Allemano Four: The Diptychs

Read "The Diptychs" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 1, 2025

Lina Allemano Four's The Diptychs presents three pairs of compositions, inspired by the visual art concept of placing two panels side by side. Just as diptychs in painting create meaning through contrast and dialogue, Allemano's music fashions reciprocal, interdependent sound worlds within each pair. A restless and inventive presence, Allemano splits her time between Toronto and Berlin. Trained in both classical and jazz trumpet, she leads the electric power trio Ohrenschmaus, the pseudo-psychedelic improvising quartet Titanium Riot, and ...

Album Review

Lina Allemano Four: The Diptychs

Read "The Diptychs" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
October 20, 2025

Maintaining its biennial release pattern going back to 2021's Vegetables (Lumo Records) and 2023's Pipe Dream (Lumo Records), The Lina Allemano Four once again strikes gold with The Diptychs, another of the group's ventures into its signature territory. With artful, multilayered themes that generate nuanced four-way dialogues, this is music born of the close collaboration that trumpeter Allemano has long championed, and her most accomplished working band is once again in top form. Built around six relatively compact ...

Album Review

Nicola Miller: Living Things

Read "Living Things" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
March 4, 2025

It is more than fair enough to say that Nova Scotia-based saxophonist/composer Nicola Miller's vision and understanding of things is peppered with oddly curious axioms and an astute ear for the undertow that pulls us all further out to sea or crashing into the breakers. At least that is what Living Things, Miller's first bold statement as a leader leads one to believe given the odd shapes and delineations that such serpentine wanderings of the lead-off “Barge"--its slippery, open ...