Jazz Articles about Nick Fraser

About Nick Fraser

Album Review

Nick Fraser / Kris Davis / Tony Malaby: Zoning

by Jack Bowers
January 28, 2020

What can be said in a positive vein about Zoning, an essentially inward-leaning and dissonant exercise in avant-garde or “free" jazz by drummer Nick Fraser, pianist Kris Davis and saxophonist Tony Malaby (supported on three numbers by tenor Ingrid Laubrock and trumpeter Lina Allemano). Well, it is music, of a sort—and it is (largely) improvised, or appears to be, which places it somewhere in the inclusive jazz sphere. And despite its often chaotic and generally unmelodious contours, the music's interpreters ...

Album Review

Nick Fraser - Kris Davis - Tony Malaby (with Ingrid Laubrock & Lina Allemano): Zoning

by Troy Dostert
November 21, 2019

Nate Cross' Astral Spirits imprint has steadily become one of the go-to options for fans of adventurous music. With over a hundred releases in its five-year existence, including well over thirty in 2019 alone, the label has maintained an impressive commitment to both quality and quantity. However, an output this extensive can result in a few worthy releases falling through the cracks. Hopefully, that won't happen to Zoning, a particularly strong record which features the collective talents of drummer Nick ...

Album Review

Peripheral Vision: More Songs About Error And Shame

Read "More Songs About Error And Shame" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann

by Friedrich Kunzmann
May 20, 2018

The first half of 2018 sees the Toronto Jazz-scene bursting with fresh sound and innovation, bringing new and exciting nuances to what appears to be today's Status Quo. After the architecturally intense exploration that was saxophonist Gordon Hyland's Never Die!, by his group Living Fossil in February, the object of this review exposes shared similarities with the latter in its compositional approach. On Peripheral Vision's More Songs About Error And Shame, Toronto-based leaders Michael Herring and Don Scott establish a ...

Album Review

Peripheral Vision: More Songs About Error And Shame

Read "More Songs About Error And Shame" reviewed by Anya Wassenberg

by Anya Wassenberg
March 27, 2018

More Songs About Error And Shame by Toronto's Peripheral Vision offers sophisticated, melodic modern jazz with an esoteric bent and eclectic tastes. Co-founders Michael Herring and Don Scott are joined by Nick Fraser on drums and Trevor Hogg on tenor sax in seven original tracks that combine elements of contemporary jazz with a garage band vibe and a groovy Sixties flavor of cool that includes swinging guitars and a strong rhythmic pulse. With tracks titles like “And the ...

Album Review

Peripheral Vision: More Songs About Error And Shame

Read "More Songs About Error And Shame" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 24, 2018

The Juno Award-nominated jazz quartet, Peripheral Vision, delivers a spontaneous set of modernistic music on More Songs About Error And Shame. The sound has a live-in-the-studio freshness, with studio tweakings to embellish their forward-leaning approach. The group's appraoch is a brash and metallic, a mesh of the teaming of Trevor Hogg's sharp toned tenor sax with the luminescence of Don Scott's resonant electric guitar. The Canadian quartet shares a decade-long history of live performance that translates to a ...

Album Review

Nick Fraser: Is Life Long?

Read "Is Life Long?" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
January 19, 2018

There is a pulse, maybe better stated a pace, drummer Nick Fraser is partial to on his recording Is Life Long?. His quartet, originally named Towns And Villages, is assembled around a concept. It is a two string (bass and cello), saxophone, and drum outfit. The music trawls an insouciant path through six original compositions. Being that it is the quartet's fourth recording, they must be doing something right.Where another drummer might be eager to display labor-intensive feats ...

Album Review

Nick Fraser Quartet: Starer

Read "Starer" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
July 26, 2016

Canadian drummer Nick Fraser follows up his trio CD Too Many Continents (Clean Feed, 2015) featuring pianist Kris Davis and saxophonist Tony Malaby with this quartet date also featuring Malaby, consummated by cellist Andrew Downing and bassist Rob Clutton. Hence, the leader imparts an atypical vista, contoured by his scrappy or terse drumming, where structural song-forms seamlessly intertwine with freedom of expression. It's like a loosely wrapped package framed on solid foundations that morph into liquefied digressions and gradually ascending ...