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Ithamara Koorax: Brazilian Butterfly
by Chris M. Slawecki
Except for two ballads--the cosmopolitan “Carinhoso with her Brazilian jazz fusion compatriots Azymuth, and Herbie Hancock's title track--Ithamara Koorax's ninth album is her most adventurous release. It seems constructed to honor legendary Brazilian vocalist Flora Purim and her husband/bandleader/percussionist Airto. This Brazilian Butterfly soars and flutters while multiple percussionists (often as many as four on the same song, most often led by the late and legendary Dom Um Romão, with Koorax frequently flailing away among them) knit together, pull apart, ...
Continue ReadingRon Carter
by Brian P. Lonergan
To create one of the most storied careers in jazz, a good recipe might be equal parts innate talent, hard work and the karma of being as stand-up a person as the bass you play. Ron Carter's gigging and recording career spans half a century and 100s of albums, including having anchored one of the most esteemed rhythm sections in jazz history; his name is practically synonymous with his instrument. Some might consider that having reached the ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains
by Robert R. Calder
Mike Holober's not just another pianist working within long-established post-Bill Evans methods, he's one of the rare very individually creative ones. Given his more monumental approach, his Gotham Jazz Orchestra can seem something of an extension of his piano work. His orchestration sometimes fills out a piano conception, sometimes interacts with his playing, piano concerto fashion. A band member's solo will sometimes have the full orchestra, sometimes the at times equally full-sounding rhythm section, in accompaniment. Planned and grand. With ...
Continue ReadingMcCoy Tyner: Counterpoints
by AAJ Staff
McCoy Tyner has basically been making the same insanely luscious and gorgeously dense modal music for nearly 40 years now. Which means that Counterpoints , which consists of five unreleased live tracks from a 1978 Tokyo concert (others were issued in 1979 on the currently unavailable Passion Dance ), is unlikely to offer anything new to anybody who's got more than a passing familiarity with the legendary pianist's work. That said, the sound is clear, Tyner is in ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains
by John Kelman
Originally recorded in '96, years before Mike Holober's début small group recording Canyon (Sons of Sound, '03), Thought Trains is only now seeing the light of day, but it continues to assert the pianist/composer/arranger as a dominant new force on the New York scene. And while the larger ensemble context of Thought Trains limits the amount of spontaneous interplay that was prevalent on Canyon , it makes up for that kind of unrestrained exploration with sharp arrangements that make full ...
Continue ReadingMike Holober and the Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Thought Trains
by Dan McClenaghan
There's something about trains, the metronomic, ringing clink-clack of metal wheels on metal track, the fanfare of the whistle, the rhythm and rumble of the coaches being propelled across a countryside. Duke Ellington loved trains, in a day when he and the band used the form of transportion to get from gig to gig. Think of “Take the A Train" and “Track 360." Pianist/arranger/composer Mike Holober loves trains, too, as his second outing as leader attests--the big band set Thought ...
Continue ReadingDonald Harrison: Heroes
by Jeff Stockton
Ron Carter, one of altoist Donald Harrison's heroes and the primary bassist on this recording, makes the point that Harrison comes from New Orleans, but doesn't insist that he does. Harrison approaches his tradition with a pure heart, and from his apprenticeship with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in the mid '80s through his own leadership in the '90s, he has evolved an historical idiom into an absolutely contemporary, individual style. The title track kicks things off ...
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