Jazz Articles about Sara Caswell

About Sara Caswell

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 23, 2024

Composer/arranger Christopher Zuar's second album, Exuberance, recounts in musical terms a twisting yet picturesque journey that began seven years earlier, in 2017, when Zuar first met his now-wife, the animator Anne Beal, at MacDowell, the famed artists' residency in New Hampshire. While the relationship “blooms" in winter, there are “moments between" and other inescapable detours until “certainty" erases any lingering doubts, “exuberance" carries the day and Zuar and Beal are united as one. Yes, the music is ...

Album Review

Ryan Truesdell: Synthesis: The String Quartet Sessions

Read "Synthesis: The String Quartet Sessions" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
October 21, 2024

«L'idea di Synthesis--dice Ryan Truesdell presentando il progetto--è nata dalla consapevolezza che molti compositori di jazz traggono ispirazione dalla scrittura per quartetto d'archi di eminenti compositori classici come Bartok, Brahms e Ravel, e dalla necessità di trovare un modo realistico e al tempo stesso stimolante per creare musica insieme». Il giovane orchestratore, divenuto famoso per aver dato vita a inedite partiture di Gil Evans, presenta un progetto di 17 composizioni per quartetto d'archi (alcune in forma di ...

Album Review

Frank Ambrosetti & Strings: Sweet Caress

Read "Sweet Caress" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 5, 2024

Swiss flugelhornist/trumpeter Franco Ambrosetti teamed with pianist/arranger Alan Broadbent in 2022 for the exquisite Nora (Enja Records), a top-shelf orchestral jazz album with a core group of mainstream all-stars. Listening back to the history of the 'jazz with strings' sub-genre--the shot across the bow, Charlie Parker With Strings (Verve, 1950), followed in short order by Chet Baker with Strings (Columbia, 1953), Clifford Brown with Strings (Verve, 1955)--Nora could be considered a leap forward in terms of the richness of the ...

Album Review

9 Horses: Strum

by Neil Duggan
June 26, 2024

There are no prizes for guessing that this album from 9 Horses is called Strum because every track features the sound of a strummed instrument. There are over 20 stringed instruments involved, with mandolins, violins, guitars, banjos, basses and pianos, in various combinations, forming the main components. They are strummed, plucked or otherwise coaxed into life by a core trio of mandolinist Joe Brent, violinist Sara Caswell and bassist Andrew Ryan. Although there are many stringed instruments, that does nothing ...

Album Review

Pascal Le Boeuf: Ritual Being

Read "Ritual Being" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
June 10, 2024

Come il fratello gemello--il sassofonista Remy--anche Pascal Le Boeuf affianca al talento strumentale (di pianista) alte doti di scrittura per ampi organici. Dopo i primi lavori in gruppi condivisi, i due hanno espresso proprie individualità. Il primo s'è imposto tra i protagonisti della nuova orchestrazione jazzistica pubblicando Assembly of Shadows e Architecture of Storms. Il secondo ha dato vita ad altri progetti, tra cui il trio con Linda May Han Oh e Justin Brown (Pascal's Triangle, 2013), le collaborazioni col ...

Album Review

Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance

Read "Exuberance" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
May 13, 2024

Exuberance is part of a “long-form tonal conversation" between composer Christopher Zuar and animator Anne Beal. Zuar, a Long Island New Yorker, describes the work as “a journey of personal growth," which began in 2017 when he and Beal met as fellows at the MacDowell Colony in the woods of New Hampshire. He explains that the album is a “collaborative project that charts the last seven years of our lives." “In Winter Blooms," the opening track, grew out ...

Album Review

Chuck Owen: Renderings

Read "Renderings" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
February 2, 2024

Nato dalla collaborazione tra la WDR Big Band e Chuck Owen, Renderings conferma quest'ultimo ai vertici dell'orchestrazione mainstream contemporanea e l'orchestra tedesca l'autorevole e avvincente ensemble che sappiamo. L'idea del progetto nasce quando la splendida sassofonista della big band, Karolina Strassmayer, ha chiesto a Chuck di arrangiare una sua composizione, stimolando il bandleader a impegnarsi in un ampio lavoro con l'orchestra di Colonia. Impegni personali e circostanze varie (tra cui la pandemia) hanno ostacolato il progetto, che ...