Jazz Articles about Ron Horton

Andrew Hill: A Beautiful Day

by C. Michael Bailey
September 13, 2002

Dusk was only the beginning to this part of the story...I cannot listen to Andrew Hill’s new big band recording without thinking of him and his band as a relatively well-behaved Sam Rivers and the Rivbea Big Band. Of course, that horribly shortchanges the 65 year-old Chicago native who’s Palmetto debut, Dusk, was considered by many critics as the best jazz recording on the year. Add to that that Blue Note’s Alfred Lion considered Hill his last great ...

Andrew Hill: A Beautiful Day

by Jack Bowers
August 1, 2002

"There is plenty going on," designated cheerleader Stanley Crouch informs the reader, on composer / pianist Andrew Hill's latest album, A Beautiful Day, which showcases Hill's sixteen-piece big band in a concert performance last January at New York's famed Birdland nightclub. “With a vision given to great plasticity," Crouch writes, “[Hill] has found his own ways to reinterpret 4/4 swing, the blues, the romantic or meditative ballad, and the Afro-Hispanic rhythms that have almost invariably connected one generation of Jazz ...

Andrew Hill: A Beautiful Day

by Jon Wagner
August 1, 2002

Sometimes a live recording captures the dynamism and vibe of a band that's really “on." In ideal situations, the musical energy is obvious right off the bat, continues throughout the set, and winds up on a disc. The listener thinks: “Man, I would love to have been at that gig." Andrew Hill's new release A Beautiful Day is one of those recordings. Hill is a pianist who's been around for a long time and played in many different ...

Michael Blake: Drift

by AAJ Staff
February 1, 2002

Blake is an improvising saxophonist who, because of his personal interests and the label he’s on, is often mistakenly relegated to the Worldbeat sections. To be honest, this disc only grabbed me halfway through, but when it did, it grabbed hard, and has sustained repeated listening.

The title cut, “Drift,” is echoed à la old ECM, and has lots of little percussion making the mournful tune very world-weary. Kimbrough, listed as playing only piano, is on an electric model. Scherr’s ...

The Herbie Nichols Project: Strange City

by C. Andrew Hovan
December 1, 2001

Since 1992, the Herbie Nichols Project has been dedicated to performing the music of a gentleman who in his lifetime was sadly neglected but who left behind a body of work just as idiosyncratic and distinctive as that of Thelonious Monk. Following their two previous releases, Dr. Cyclop’s Dream and Love Is Proximity, the group now makes their debut on the Palmetto label with Strange City, a program made up almost exclusively by tunes that Nichols never recorded himself. Arguably, ...

The Herbie Nichols Project: Strange City

by Mark Corroto
November 1, 2001

The Herbie Nichols Project releases its third recording of the one-time lost genius, Herbie Nichols. Co-led by bassist Ben Allison and pianist Frank Kimbrough, the HNP was created as part of the Jazz Composers Collective, a non-profit musician-run organization, to present original music. By choosing the work of Nichols, Allison and Kimbrough have re-ignited interest in a true genius of modern music.Herbie Nichols, born in 1919 in New York of immigrant parent from St. Kitt and Trinidad, was ...

Ron Horton: Genius Envy

by Glenn Astarita
November 1, 1999

Jazz fans have a reason to celebrate with the advent of the new OmniTone jazz label. Coinciding with Frank Kimbrough and Joe Locke’s superb Saturn’s Child (See Nov ’99 AAJ reviews) we have Genius Envy which showcases the monstrous talents of trumpeter/composer Ron Horton. Here, Horton along with fellow Jazz Composers Collective artists, bassist Ben Allison and pianist Frank Kimbrough join forces with the estimable soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. Horton is touted as a musician’s musician emanating from his ...