Jazz Articles about Scott Colley

Scott Colley: Music Architect

by R.J. DeLuke
March 26, 2007

Scott Colley can be found adding his big-toned, always appropriate contra bass to a number of settings. He's been a staple on the New York music scene for some time now, with older established musicians like Pat Metheny, Andrew Hill, John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Michael Brecker, Clifford Jordan, Herbie Hancock and many, many more. But also with colleagues like Ravi Coltrane, Chris Potter, David Binney or Craig Taborn. He's also recorded steadily, something many bassists can't say. From ...

Scott Colley: Architect of the Silent Moment

by Stephen Wood
February 22, 2007

Scott Colley's ability to fuse free-form improvisation, complex meters, grooving melodies, rock harmonies and atonality has solidified his position as a New York jazz musician of the new generation. Unfortunately we live in a plagued era in which musical complexity is worth just as much as--if not more than--musical accessibility and the communication of ideas. Architect of the Silent Moment suffers from at least three of the symptoms endemic to this ailment.Symptom 1: Overplaying. Much of the record ...

Scott Colley: Architect of the Silent Moment

by John Kelman
February 2, 2007

If an artist is the sum total of his experiences, then Scott Colley's reach is nearly limitless. In twenty years the bassist has appeared on nearly 150 albums, ranging from mainstream work with Jim Hall and Carmen McRae to more left-of-center projects with Andrew Hill and Greg Osby. His own releases have been migrating towards a more expansive viewpoint. On Architect of the Silent Moment Colley brings together a collection of players who share his appreciation for what's come before, ...

Mike Holober: Canyon

by John Kelman
December 10, 2003

With a strong supporting cast, New York pianist Mike Holober's Canyon delivers a fine first effort of modern post-bop material. Producer Fred Hersch takes Holober, a busy sideman on the New York scene, and places him in the spotlight, garnering the artist broader recognition.

Holober is a lyrical pianist coming from the Evans/Jarrett/Jamal tradition, but while his playing on Canyon is strong and confident, his compositions are the real highlight of the release. The seven originals run the ...

Mike Holober: Canyon

by Michael P. Gladstone
December 4, 2003

Mike Holober, pianist and composer of most of these songs, is the nominal leader of this combo. However, the bulk of the melody chores are handed to saxophonist Tim Ries. Herein lies the difference. Ries, a veteran New York session player and recording artist with three releases under his own name, plays both soprano and tenor sax. On soprano, he plays with a more metallic sound that takes away from the melody; his approach on tenor is much in the ...

Mike Holober: Canyon

by Dan McClenaghan
October 19, 2003

Pianist/composer Mike Holober's songs brim with shifting textures and moods, like the color changes wrought by the inexorbably-shifting angles of sunlight playing upon the striations of a canyon wall. Holober spends free time hiking and climbing, and he wrote the title tune for Canyon after a trip to Utah's Paria Canyon, an experience that inspired a song full of seamlessly shifting grooves.Those shifts and changes within a composition – done while maintaining an entrancing accessibility – are Holober's ...

Conversation with Scott Colley

by Franz A. Matzner
October 5, 2003

Though he doesn't know it, I owe composer/bassist Scott Colley quite a bit. It was hearing Mr. Colley perform at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles several years ago that fully opened my ears to the expressive force of the bass. Certainly, I'd always possessed a certain predilection for the bass, but it wasn't until after watching Colley tear up the stage with band mates Ravi Coltrane, Adam Rodgers, and Bill Stewart that I found myself digging through old recordings, ...