Home » Jazz Articles » Sean Jones
Jazz Articles about Sean Jones
About Sean Jones
WDR Big Band with Sean Jones: Jagged Edges Elegant Lines
by Pierre Giroux
The release Jagged Edges Elegant Lines: The Music of Ayn Inserto is hardly decorative. This live recording by the WDR Big Band, featuring trumpeter Sean Jones, presents an evening of Inserto's compositions that seem determined to keep two things going at once. First, the music can be angular, interrupted, and rhythmically unpredictable; second, it always has an underlying sense of direction. What initially sounds fragmented invariably becomes part of a grander design. That tension is what gives Inserto's music its ...
Continue ReadingLakecia Benjamin: We Dream
by Andrew Schinder
In a genre full of peaceniks, Lakecia Benjamin is a killer. Benjamin, the alto saxophonist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, has exploded over the course of the 2020's--both figuratively and musically. Her sound is brash and resonant, yet delicately composed and precisely structured. Benjamin is a focused musician, with all of her artistic choices brimming with intent, and the results are positively thrilling. She has become one of contemporary jazz's most popular and revered alto saxophonists, and she is just ...
Continue ReadingLakecia Benjamin: We Dream
by Mike Jurkovic
Lakecia Benjamin is clearly pulling no punches on We Dream. Not that she ever has, given a discography that includes 2020's Pursuance: The Coltranes (Ropeadope Records); 2012's intoxicating, groove-crazy Retox (Motema) or the spellbinding sister releases Phoenix (Whirlwind, 2023) and the super stoked Phoenix ReImagined (Live) (Ropeadope Records, 2024). We Dream drops the mic and leaves the rest up to the listener: What are you going to do to make the world a better place today? Excitable and ...
Continue ReadingZahili Gonzalez Zamora: Overcoming
by Andy Crowther
Zahili Zamora's journey from Cuba to Boston via Southeast Asia is reflected in her aptly titled five-track album, Overcoming. A pianist, composer and now educator, she tackles her fears and difficult life experiences head-on in the work, through sound, emotion and rhythm. At 22 Zamora was in a high-calibre all-female band that toured often outside of Cuba, when on a whim the band decided to stay in Canada after performing there. The country offered far more freedom than ...
Continue ReadingOrrin Evans and the Captain Black Big Band: Walk A Mile In My Shoe
by Steve Plever
A glance through the track list--with covers of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and two swing-era vocal standards--could give you the wrong impression. Yes, this is a very accessible and soulful album, but it is serious and heartfelt jazz, with Orrin Evans' personal stamp making it work. Blues, soul and gospel sounds share the stage here with swing, straight-ahead and avant-garde influences--no surprise given Evans' decade of playing with the Mingus Big Band. Evans' piano sets the tone ...
Continue ReadingNYO Jazz: Live in Johannesburg
by Jack Bowers
In the summer of 2024, trumpeter/music director Sean Jones and Carnegie Hall's prodigious NYO (National Youth Orchestra) packed their bags and headed overseas for a tour of South Africa, pausing at one of that country's historic landmarks, the Market Theatre, on July 26-28 to present three days of impressive concert performances that thankfully were taped and preserved on this marvelous two-disc compilation, Live in Johannesburg. If these twenty-two young musicians represent any sort of barometer, the future ...
Continue ReadingOrrin Evans and the Captain Black Big Band: Walk A Mile In My Shoe
by Angelo Leonardi
Il nuovo disco di Orrin Evans e della sua Captain Black Big Band ci ricorda l'importanza delle radici per la comunità musicale afroamericana: il gospel, il blues, le big band, i cantanti e strumentisti storici. Una risorsa che è anche identità collettiva e forza culturale. Come ha sempre fatto in passato, il pianista e bandleader di Philadelphia s'ispira alla tradizione per rinnovarla e arricchirla, con passione e freschezza. Stavolta le orchestrazioni sono funzionali alle interpretazioni di quattro prodigiosi ...
Continue ReadingAlbum Showcase
Trending
Interview
Lou Marini: A Solo Career Starting At The Age Of 80
Jazz Raconteurs
Julius Hemphill: Marty Ehrlich and Tim Berne Remember a...
In Tribute To...
John Coltrane At 100: A Global Perspective
History of Jazz
John Coltrane in Detroit: A Brief History
Live Review
Detroit Jazz Festival 2026: A Gathering in a Great Jazz City
Profile
Sequoia Snyder: Growing in the Light of the Masters
Interview
Jasur Khalilov: From Falak to Fusion
Featured Video
Premium
VOTE!
