Jazz Articles about Nicole Mitchell

About Nicole Mitchell

Album Review

Art Ensemble of Chicago: The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris

Read "The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
February 8, 2023

Recorded live in Paris in February 2020, The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris. presents Art Ensemble Of Chicago—as defiantly daring avant-garde as that first night in Paris, 1969 —giving no quarter whatsoever in their lifelong, diasporic pursuit of creation unbound. Breaking at the pace of a dream, surviving co-founders saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famoudou Don Moye return to the moment of conception with a two hour, double disc set The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris, ...

Album Review

Art Ensemble Of Chicago: The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris

Read "The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
February 6, 2023

Parigi è città fatale per l'Art Ensemble of Chicago: nel 1969 fu traguardo del prodigio artistico e umano preparato negli anni precedenti da Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors e Joseph Jarman, che avevano incrociato le proprie esperienze dapprima al Wilson Junior College di Chicago, nel 1961, poi nel lavoro con la Experimental Band di Muhal Richard Abrams, che dal '66 vide anche la partecipazione di Lester Bowie. Infine, nella formidabile attività musicale, didattica e sociale dell'Association for the Advancement of Creative ...

Album Review

JoVia Armstrong: The Antidote Suite

Read "The Antidote Suite" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
September 9, 2022

La scena musicale di Chicago regala continue sorprese. Protagoniste di questo lavoro sono la percussionista e compositrice JoVia Armstrong e la violinista Leslie DeShazor, riunite nell'Eunoia Society. Accanto a loro un nutrito gruppo di ospiti, tra cui i celebri Jeff Parker e Nicole Mitchell. The Antidote Suite è pubblicato dalla nuova etichetta della flautista e non è casuale: la Armstrong è infatti un nuovo membro dell'AACM ed è fortemente impegnata nella valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale afroamericano. JoVia è ...

Album Review

Artifacts: Tomeka Reid, Nicole Mitchell, Mike Reed: …and then there’s this

Read "…and then there’s this" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
December 16, 2021

For the follow up to the excellent debut Artifacts (482 Music, 2015), the stellar threesome of cellist Tomeka Reid, flautist Nicole Mitchell, and drummer Mike Reed waxes another outstanding album, but one which differs in two respects. Firstly this time out the emphasis is on the compositional smarts of the crew rather than a celebration of their forebears in Chicago's esteemed AACM. Secondly, as Mitchell elucidates, this collection is also more focused on the groove. But neither is a dramatic ...

Album Review

Sara Schoenbeck: Sara Schoenbeck

Read "Sara Schoenbeck" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
December 9, 2021

Sara Schoenbeck is cast against type in the world of bassoonists. The versatile double reed, broad-ranged instrument dates to the Renaissance and is commonly found in wind ensembles and chamber orchestras. But Schoenbeck has brought her classical-leaning instrument to creative music in an electrifying body of work. Her self-titled leader debut is the first such project of her career. A series of nine duets allows Schoenbeck to fully explore the scope of the bassoon in close settings. Not ...

Album Review

Artifacts: Tomeka Reid, Nicole Mitchell, Mike Reed: …and then there’s this

Read "…and then there’s this" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 15, 2021

Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians or AACM, formed in 1965, adopted the maxim “ancient to the future." The future of which they spoke, in the hands of the next generation heard here, is indeed secure. The trio Artifacts comprises the gifted successors to the AACM, cellist Tomeka Reid, flutist Nicole Mitchell, and drummer Mike Reed. ...and then there's this is the trio's second release and it follows the self-titled debut from 482 Music in 2015. Where that ...

Album Review

Rob Mazurek / Exploding Star Orchestra: Dimensional Stardust

Read "Dimensional Stardust" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
December 10, 2020

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist Rob Mazurek has made his Exploding Star Orchestra the centerpiece of his larger groups. In this formation, he finds ample room to channel his disparate influences such as Sun Ra and Bill Dixon, and the distinctions he's absorbed as a global citizen. On Dimensional Stardust Mazurek and a dozen collaborators present an energetic, always changeable, genre-less mélange of styles held together by imagination and daring. The imposing Exploding Star Orchestra includes flautist Nicole ...