Jazz Articles about Steve Baczkowski

About Steve Baczkowski

Album Review

Reedman Steve Baczkowski would surely be better known had he not remained in Buffalo, NY, where he grew up and studied, as he possesses a fearsome sound. In his guise as Music Director of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in his hometown, he's undoubtedly familiar with the German saxophone titan Peter Brötzmann, who is clearly an inspiration. There's the same huge vibrato and worrying of a prolonged note, like a dog with a bone. He's also inclined to simple extemporized melodies ...

Album Review

Steve Baczkowski / Brandon Lopez / Chris Corsano: Old Smoke

Read "Old Smoke" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
May 11, 2019

The image on the cover says it all, a blast furnace exploding with elemental energy and heat. And it doesn't take long for the music on Old Smoke, a live release that represents the first recorded collaboration between saxophonist Steve Baczkowski, bassist Brandon Lopez and drummer Chris Corsano, to reach astonishing peaks of fiery intensity. This is a trio not to be trifled with, on a single-minded pursuit of powerful free improvisation in its most uncompromising form. Of ...