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Jazz Articles about Peter Lutek
Avi Granite 6: Operator
by Dan McClenaghan
Guitarist Avi Granite--in the company of his brash band Avi Granite 6--opens his Operator with “Crushing Beans," displaying a big bad attitude. The drums are explosive, the horns belt it out, the bass shakes the walls and Granite slashes and burns. The first impression is: “This must be a great live band." And indeed, the studio appointment to record Operator came when the group was fresh from a tour. They brought the bandstand energy with them. “Voracious" is ...
Continue ReadingLara Solnicki: The One And The Other
by Alberto Bazzurro
Questo è il terzo album, dopo Whose Shadow?, del 2014, e A Meadow in December del 2011, a nome della cantante canadese (di Toronto) Lara Solnicki, presenza tutto sommato piuttosto anomala nel variegato panorama delle jazz singers per svariati motivi, che cerchiamo di sintetizzare. Anzitutto lei canta e dice (si definisce cantante-compositrice-poetessa), ma non su un terreno contemporaneo-aleatorio-concreto, come si potrebbe immaginare, bensì lungo brani perfettamente predefiniti, per attraversare i quali si affida alle cure di gruppi numerosi (ieri un ...
Continue ReadingLara Solnicki: The One And The Other
by Jerome Wilson
Lara Solnicki is a Canadian poet, composer and singer who combines all her talents strikingly on this album, marrying her words to a dense fabric of free-flowing jazz and improvisation. Solnicki bends her voice well to the requirements of each composition. On the singsong rhythm of “The Embrace," she sounds sensitive but slightly detached against falling piano and electronic whispers, while, on the cinematic construction of “Bit Her Sweet Christopher Street," her voice climbs through a busy tangle ...
Continue ReadingLara Solnicki: The One And The Other
by C. Michael Bailey
Among feelings are nervousness and anxiety. While synonymous in any thesaurus, the two words differ in the same way that thankfulness and gratitude differ, that is, in focus. Nervousness and thankfulness often have no focus, no definite object creating them. Anxiety and gratitude are those feelings, those reactions to the specific. Something clearly gives rise to them. With regards to anxiety and disquiet, Canadian vocalist and composer Lara Solnicki uses “free jazz" and poetry as the stimulus for generating a ...
Continue ReadingMark Segger: Lift Off
by Glenn Astarita
This Canadian band throws almost everything imaginable at the studio walls in synchronous fashion. And while the album may be classified as an EP, due to its 29-minute length, quality is the underlying factor throughout. Based out of Edmonton, Segger started this band via its first album, The Beginning (18th Note Records, 2011). Nine-years later, the sextet extends its resume with this high-impact and compelling release, brimming with gobs of counterpoint, sizzling free-form detours and complex modal narratives.
Continue ReadingMark Segger Sextet: Lift Off
by Dan Bilawsky
Fracas and focus are not mutually exclusive concepts. In purely linguistic terms, invoking the label “avant-garde" when addressing sound often calls to mind a melee-as-music scenario. The audible truth, however, is something else entirely. An artist's work can lean far to the left without falling off the comprehensibility scale, and drummer Mark Segger makes that argument with brevity and brio. With twelve years of existence binding concepts and compadres, Segger's sextet operates like a well-oiled, though highly irregular ...
Continue ReadingMichael Vlatkovich 5 Winds: Five of Us
by Alberto Bazzurro
Ensemble (nello specifico quintetto) di soli fiati (non solo ance ma anche ottoni), come una volta era praticamente inaudito, dopo di che ci si sono misurati in diversi, e in tempi recenti quasi più nessuno: questa è la formazione a cui si rivolge il vulcanico trombonista losangelino Michael Vlatkovich per questo suo nuovo lavoro, peraltro inciso (a Toronto) nell'abbastanza lontano 2015. Vi trova posto una musica curata, parecchio scritta ma non per questo priva di singoli apporti in grado di ...
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