Jazz Articles about Paul McCandless

About Paul McCandless

Album Review

Tra le numerosissime pubblicazioni di materiale inedito che emerge dagli archivi rischia di passare inosservata questa preziosissima gemma, che riporta alla luce un concerto tenuto in Germania nel 1974 dagli Oregon, uno dei gruppi musicali più importanti dell'ultimo mezzo secolo per il loro approccio rivoluzionario a una concezione della musica senza confini o barriere create da categorizzazioni dovute più a esigenze di mercato che espressive. La loro musica fonde in maniera pressoché perfetta elementi jazzistici, classici, folkloristici ed etnici attraverso ...

Album Review

Yelena Eckemoff: Desert

by Tyran Grillo
June 1, 2018

After two expansive collections that gathered large ensembles and formidable names, Yelena Eckemoff chooses subtraction. Desert arrives as a deliberate narrowing of the horizon, a journey defined not by accumulation but by exposure. Joined by Paul McCandless on an assortment of reeds and winds, Arild Andersen on bass, and Peter Erskine on drums and percussion, Eckemoff steps into a terrain where every gesture is magnified by space. What emerges is music that feels windswept and arid, an austere and sharply ...

Album Review

Yelena Eckemoff: Desert

by Mark Sullivan
June 1, 2018

Pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff was born in Russia and in 2018 lives in North Carolina--neither location suggests a desert theme. But Eckemoff became fascinated by the Arabian Desert, producing not only music but also prose stories connecting the compositions to each other, as well as poetry and paintings (including the album's cover image). Her albums are usually organized around a theme. This one is unusual in having a musical style directly associated with it: so much of this program combines Arabic ...

Album Review

Yelena Eckemoff: Desert

Read "Desert" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 13, 2018

Pianist Yelena Eckemoff's backstory doesn't suggest the potential for a rise to the category of top level jazz pianist. But here she is, after emigrating to the U.S. from Russia with her husband--leaving her children (temporarily) and everything else (permanently) behind in 1991 to escape repression and to start a new life. Classically trained in her homeland, Eckemoff came to jazz relatively late. With persistence, talent, ambition, audacity and a seemingly unshakable optimism, she has navigated her way to the ...

Album Review

Paul McCandless: Morning Sun

Read "Morning Sun" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 18, 2017

First things first. The full title of this decorous CD is Morning Sun: Adventures with Oboe--Paul McCandless with the Paul Winter Consort: A Retrospective. It covers sixteen recordings made by oboist McCandless spanning a forty-year period (1970-2010), all save three with the Winter Consort. Needless to say, a large number of musicians were involved; their names are listed in the CD booklet, accompanying each selection. McCandless plays oboe most of the way, English horn on “The Steppes of Central Asia," ...

Extended Analysis

Eberhard Weber: Hommage à Eberhard Weber

by John Kelman
September 4, 2015

Despite being waylaid from playing the instrument that defined his approach to both performance and composition by a severe 2007 stroke, Eberhard Weber has managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of continuing to make recordings that revolve around his instantly recognizable, custom-made electro-acoustic instrument: 2013's Resumé and 2015's appropriately titled Encore, both on ECM Records, the label that's been home to the bassist, composer and occasional bandleader since Colours of Chloë (1974), his award-winning leader debut. Now, it's true ...

Rediscovery

Piacentini-Bonati-McCandless-Moreno: Circles

by John Kelman
January 27, 2015

Piacentini-Bonati-McCandless-Moreno CirclesNueva1991 Today's Rediscovery will be a challenge for most; few will have heard of the record, and of those that have, even fewer will actually own it. Circles' biggest draw may be Paul McCandless--the reed and woodwind multi-instrumentalist who has, with Ralph Towner and Glen Moore, performed with the genre-busting Oregon since its inception 45 years ago. But the balance of the album's quartet--a trio of Italian musicians including keyboardist Mario Piacentini, bassist Roberto ...