Jazz Articles about Skerik

Will Bernard: Freelance Subversives

by Doug Collette
May 13, 2020

A native Californian currently headquartered in Brooklyn, Will Bernard's geographical touchpoints mirror the expanse of solo and collaborative projects to which he's contributed over the course of his career. Just a few of the names appearing in his discography are also indicative of the guitarist's broadly eclectic approach: eccentric singer/composer Tom Waits, drummer extraordinaire Stanton Moore and guitar wunderkind Charlie Hunter. And dating back to Will's membership with the latter in T.J. Kirk (with drummer Scott Amendola), there's been a ...

Todd Sickafoose: Tiny Resistors

by Sean Patrick Fitzell
June 12, 2008

With lush orchestrations of finely honed compositions, bassist Todd Sickafoose's Tiny Resistors reveals a broad musical vision. A stalwart of the new music scene, playing improv and indie-rock projects and blurring those distinctions, Sickafoose's third CD highlights his maturation as a composer and talents as a multi-instrumentalist, with pieces incorporating a swath of stylistic influences--rock, Americana, jazz, blues and touches of modern classical. Sickafoose works a sweeping aural range, with instrumentation that includes two guitars, drums and ...

Todd Sickafoose: Tiny Resistors

by John Kelman
June 3, 2008

An active sideman, bassist Todd Sickafoose is best-known for his work with DIY singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco. But he's also been very busy on the outer edges of jazz, working with artists including John Zorn on Voices in the Wilderness (Tzadik, 2003), Tin Hat Trio on The Rodeo Eroded (Ropeadope, 2002), and Scott Amendola Band on the drummer's very fine Cry (Cryptogramophone, 2003). It may be Amendola's disc that hooked Sickafoose up with Cryptogramophone for Tiny Resistors, his third record as ...

Skerik: Concept is All Anyone Cares About

by Paul Olson
October 16, 2006

Seattle-born saxophonist Skerik--née Eric Walton--isn't a jazz musician. Or at least, he wouldn't say he is, because no contemporary instrumentalist is more indifferent to--even contemptuous of--musical boundaries and genres. His early years in Seattle were deeply jazz-informed (his father was a jazz fan), but he was playing in rock groups at the same time he was involved in his school's jazz ensembles, and was as inspired by Bobby Keyes' tenor work on Rolling Stones records and Dick Parry's sax breaks ...

Skerik: Husky

by Chris M. Slawecki
July 11, 2006

Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet is unusual in several ways. First, there's the leader, a tenor saxophonist who goes only by his surname and who also performs in such genteel ensembles as The Dead Kenny Gs and Crack Sabbath. There's that band name, which Skerik copped from the “syncopated taint phrase first used by the US's first “drug czar (Harry J. Anslinger) to describe the moral decay apparently caused by the nation's simultaneous discoveries of jazz music and marijuana in the ...

Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet: Husky

by AAJ Staff
July 7, 2006

The select few who actually recognize Skerik's singular name will probably remember the saxophonist's recent wild and wacky adventures with Charlie Hunter, Wayne Horvitz and Bobby Previte with some nostalgia. The combination of skronk, groove and interjection he has laid down with these alternative proto-jazz icons seems to have crystallized over time, almost as much as it has simultaneously mutated in the process. This is the second Syncopated Taint Septet release after the group's 2003 self-titled debut on Ropeadope.

To ...

Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet: Husky

by Paul Olson
July 2, 2006

Tenor saxman Skerik is such an irrepressible personality on his horn, and such a joyously human presence in groups like Critters Buggin', Garage à Trois and Bobby Previte's Coalition of the Willing, that it's sometimes easy to underestimate him and think of his talents as more instinctive and spontaneous than analytic or accomplished. The wryness of his overall musical presentation and the fact that he's usually featured in groove-oriented settings may have also encouraged some listeners to view him as ...