Jazz Articles about Peter Washington

About Peter Washington

Album Review

Indicative of formative experiences in the bands of Art Blakey and Jackie McLean, as well as his current association with the cooperative sextet One For All, Steve Davis’ Systems Blue encompasses many of the characteristics of bop and hard bop without sounding stalled in a bygone era. On his fifth date for the Criss Cross label, the trombonist and prolific composer favors selections from the American Popular Songbook. While he frequently alters the forms and harmonic designs in engaging ways, ...

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Album Review

One For All: Live at Smoke, Volume 1

Read "Live at Smoke, Volume 1" reviewed by David A. Orthmann

by David A. Orthmann
February 1, 2002

As anyone who frequents jazz clubs will attest, there are nights that live on in memory for years after the last note fades. Aside from basic details easily recalled (personnel, tunes, arrangements, etc.), what really matters is the way the music made us feel. On these rare occasions, the sounds were so potent that, for a time, nothing else mattered and all worldly concerns yielded to the happenings on stage. In search of another incredible experience, we keep coming back ...

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Album Review

One For All: Live at Smoke- Volume 1

Read "Live at Smoke- Volume 1" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
January 1, 2002

Growing out of a weekly jam session that drummer Joe Farnsworth used to lead at a New York club called Augie’s, the hard bop ensemble One For All now encompasses a pool of leaders who still manage to get together and cultivate the kind of musical empathy that they’ve developed over the years. After two initial albums for the Sharp Nine label, the group jumped ship to Criss Cross Jazz where the majority of the guys cut records of their ...

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Album Review

Jim Rotondi: Excursions

Read "Excursions" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
October 1, 2000

One of the next major talents yet to be discovered by the jazz public at large, trumpeter Jim Rotondi is a dynamo full of the kind of bristling trumpet fire that distinguished such predecessors as Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw. Over the course of his first two Criss Cross dates, Introducing Jim Rotondi and Jim’s Bop Rotondi proved that he was a capable mainstream player with great promise in terms of developing his own voice. Now with Excursions he goes ...

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Album Review

Jim Rotondi: Excursions

Read "Excursions" reviewed by David A. Orthmann

by David A. Orthmann
July 1, 2000

During the course of Excursions, his third disc as a leader for the Criss Cross imprint, Jim Rotondi continually finds ways of breathing new life into the straight-ahead, three horns and rhythm format. Rotondi has written and chosen a variety of tunes ranging from up and medium tempo swingers (“Angel Eyes,” “Shortcake,” “Little Karin”) to a bossa nova (“Excursions”), to ballads (“Little B’s Poem,” “What Is There To Say”). Further, he writes and utilizes arrangements by the band members that ...

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Album Review

Benny Golson: The Jazz Messengers: The Legacy Of Art Blakey

Read "The Jazz Messengers: The Legacy Of Art Blakey" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
September 1, 1998

Five former members of The Jazz Messengers plus drummer Lewis Nash make up this Art Blakey Legacy Band that has toured the U.S. recently and paid homage to the legendary teacher and leader. Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, trombonist Curtis Fuller, pianist Geoff Keezer, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Nash perform compositions written by Messengers for that unit: Wayne Shorter wrote “One by One," Fuller wrote “A La Mode," Blanchard wrote “Oh, By the Way," Cedar Walton wrote ...