Jazz Articles about Rachel Therrien

About Rachel Therrien

Album Review

Rachel Therrien: Home Inspiration

Read "Home Inspiration" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
December 6, 2014

Canadian trumpeter Rachel Therrien's second release as a leader Home Inspiration, clearly establishes the Montreal native, even at this early stage of her career, as an accomplished composer and improviser. She contributes six of the ten originals on this cinematically inspired album, all of which have intricately constructed and memorable thematic frameworks. The delightfully eccentric “Lost" opens with Therrien's unaccompanied preface to the stimulatingly chaotic but subtly orchestrated ensemble play that follows. Angular rhythmic flourishes underscore Therrien and ...

Album Review

Rachel Therrien: Home Inspiration

Read "Home Inspiration" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 25, 2014

Montreal-based trumpeter and composer Rachel Therrien's second album, Home Inspiration is a salutary reminder of something that the American jazz scene doesn't always seem to acknowledge--there's a thriving, young and imaginative jazz scene up north, in Canada. All the tunes on Home Inspiration are originals, with Therrien taking composer credit for around half of them. They hark back to the glory days of the big bands and to the bebop era, they're rooted in more contemporary sounds as ...

Album Review

Rachel Therrien: Home Inspiration

Read "Home Inspiration" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
November 6, 2014

The big challenge for the young musician is developing a distinctive voice. This goes not just for the instrumental side of the equation, but maybe even more so in the band they put together. Competence and even virtuosic flare are fairly common, but without the voice, the sound can come out bland, pasteurized. Trumpeter Rachel Therrien, out of Montreal, lacks a deep resume at this point. She's young. But she makes, in one of the toughest formats--the standard ...