Jazz Articles about Scott Colley

Scott Colley: Empire

by John Kelman
August 25, 2010

One of jazz's most ubiquitous bassists, Scott Colley has only released a handful of albums as a leader, compared to hundreds of sessions and live dates with artists ranging from Jim Hall and Andrew Hill to Chris Potter and Antonio Sanchez. Architect of the Silent Moment (CamJazz, 2007), was a particularly impressive combination of head and heart, traditional roots and forward thinking, acoustic and electric. One of 2007's best , it was a turning point for Colley--a new path that ...

Tineke Postma: The Traveller

by David Adler
February 6, 2010

On Dutchwoman Tineke Postma's fourth outing, The Traveller, the young saxophonist leads a top-tier American lineup of Geri Allen (piano), Scott Colley (bass) and Terri Lyne Carrington (drums). Far from being overwhelmed, Postma holds her ground and even challenges the band with a set of strong original material, plus “Adagio 13," an adaptation of a string quartet movement by Heitor Villa Lobos. In particular, The Traveller finds Allen in brilliant form--swinging hard, turning static harmony inside out, ...

Komeda Project: Requiem

by Chris May
November 28, 2009

Despite the snowballing emergence of European jazz musicians on the world stage, relatively few European jazz composers have, in 2009, made it into the global repertory, which continues to be dominated by American voices. Perhaps it always will be, and perhaps local singularities--Italian or British or Scandinavian or whatever--are in any case better treasured, rather than absorbed into a single, universal body of work. But the fact remains that a cornucopia of great “foreign" compositions remains neglected in jazz's birth ...

Komeda Project: Requiem

by Budd Kopman
November 6, 2009

With the magnificent Requiem, pianist Andrzej Winnicki and saxophonist Krzysztof Medyna solidify and enhance their reputations as the prime promoters of the essential music of the Polish pianist and composer Krzysztof Komeda (1931-1969). Komeda is widely recognized as the founder of modern Polish, and in a wider sense, European modern jazz. That he worked in Poland under Communist oppression is important. At its heart, jazz refuses to be pigeonholed, and it both allows and demands that its practitioners be utterly ...

Komeda Project: Requiem

by Jakob Baekgaard
November 4, 2009

There's an awareness which is located deep within human nature that we're subject to both positive feelings as well as destructive impulses: Love and death, Eros and Thanatos, exist side by side. All great art is a mirror of the human condition and nobody understood better than the Polish composer and pianist Krzysztof Komeda that life as well as music is composed of light and darkness.

The dual nature of Komeda's music is captured perfectly in one of his masterpieces, ...

Scott Colley: Architect Of The Silent Moment

by Budd Kopman
January 19, 2008

A work that presents a deeply mined and singular mood, Architect Of The Silent Moment is subdued yet coolly intense. The album presents a unified musical vision built on bass vamps and grooves with little true melodic development or harmonic changes, allowing the soloists much freedom within each defined section. While the prevailing feeling created is one of introspection and thoughtfulness, elation and clarity break through many times. This is not music that presents obvious, clear forms ...

Scott Colley: Architect of the Silent Moment

by Fred Bouchard
September 21, 2007

For bassist Colley's Architect of the Silent Moment, a conceptual construct (more poetically, a fantasia) for small ensemble, the oft-quoted dictum has rarely seemed more apposite: “Less is more. Colley starts with a core quartet of Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Craig Taborn (keyboards) and Antonio Sanchez (drums), and guests emerge and disappear throughout the subtle, largely written, 54-minute work. Dave Binney's alto fleshes out dodge-and-weave frontlines that recall Shorter/Davis, and wails his lone caterwaul on “From Within. Mouth-harpist Gregoire Maret limns ...