Jazz Articles about Ran Blake

About Ran Blake

Multiple Reviews

Alla non banale soglia degli ottant'anni, compiuti lo scorso 20 aprile, Ran Blake se ne esce con tre nuovi lavori che in parte ribadiscono concetti già noti (almeno nei suoi percorsi più recenti) e in parte ne insinuano di meno battuti. Ran Blake Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell A-Side Records 2015 Valutazione: * * * ½ Partendo da quest'ultimo profilo, se è nota la dedizione ...

Album Review

Ran Blake: Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell

Read "Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
July 31, 2015

Sometimes an album can haunt you. It can be a companion that follows you through life. In the liner notes for the album: Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell (A-Side Records, 2015), pianist and composer Ran Blake reveals his love for composer and bandleader George Russell's album Jazz Workshop (RCA-Victor, 1957): “I listened to it so much that I wore out several copies, each time having to revisit the record store to replace it." Blake's love for ...

Album Review

Ran Blake: Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell

Read "Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
July 10, 2015

Pianist/composer Ran Blake presents a loving tribute to his late colleague George Russell in a diverse program anchored by his sensitive piano playing. Blake and Russell taught together at the New England Conservatory for many years. Russell was immensely influential as a modal jazz theorist, but Blake loves his compositions above all. He interprets several of them here, along with some of his own and a few biographically relevant standards. The set opens and closes with solo piano ...

Album Review

Ran Blake: Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell

Read "Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 20, 2015

At eighty years of age, pianist Ran Blake has shaped an impressive and multifaceted legacy: four decades of mentoring students at the New England Conservatory; helping shape a new genre of music, Third Stream, the marriage of the jazz and classical worlds; his teaming with the lady vocalists--Jeanne Lee, Christine Correa, Sara Serpa, Dominque Eade; numerous solo piano recordings, and a handful-plus of tribute sets, honoring icons like Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughn. Ghost Tones ...

Live Review

Ran Blake al Teatro Manzoni di Milano

by Vincenzo Roggero
March 11, 2015

Ran Blake Aperitivo in concerto Teatro Manzoni Milano 01.03.2015 Imbattersi nella musica di Ran Blake equivale a intraprendere un viaggio sorprendente nella sua arte, tanti e diversi sono gli stimoli, le sollecitazioni, i riferimenti ad altre forme espressive oltre a quella propriamente musicale. Ma altresì diventa momento di riflessione personale, un mettersi in prospettiva diversa per andare oltre le apparenze, scoprire cosa si cela dietro forme consolidate, vedere cosa succede quando si levano di ...

Album Review

Ran Blake: Plays Solo Piano

Read "Plays Solo Piano" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 14, 2014

ESP Disk's 50th anniversary reissue series continues to unearth valuable documents from the history of cutting edge music. Back in the 1960s, when jazz was becoming marginalized as popular music and disenfranchised by the rise of rock-and-roll, ESP chose to eliminate musical classifications that pigeonholed creative music. The label released music by Albert Ayler and Gato Barbieri at the same time it was producing The Fugs and Pearls Before Swine. This re-release of pianist Ran Blake's Plays Solo ...

Bailey's Bundles

At the Corner: Ran Blake / Sara Serpa / Christine Correa

by C. Michael Bailey
May 23, 2013

The common element between Sara Serpa's Aurora and Christine Correa's Down Here Below is obviously pianist Ran Blake. Enigmatic to a fault, Blake has made a potent name for himself among improvised music enthusiasts. Blake is an intellectual amalgam of pianists Thelonious Monk and Martial Solal distilled to a dissonant essence. A long time professor at the New England Conservatory, Blake has taken many under his tutelage, specifically singers, beginning with Jeanne Lee on The Newest Sound ...