Jazz Articles about Steve Gadd

About Steve Gadd

Album Review

Since the 70s, Steve Gadd has pretty much seen it and done it all, and recognized as one of the most influential drummers of the modern era, spanning numerous musical genres. His slippery cross-sticking between the hi-hat and snare drum amid new ways and means to generate a funk groove, along with his famous drum solo on the title track of Steely Dan's 1977 landmark album “Aja," are just a few noteworthy accreditations of a distinguished career. For example, he's ...

Album Review

Steve Gadd Band: Gadditude

Read "Gadditude" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 28, 2013

Drummer Steve Gadd, the man responsible for some of the most memorable grooves and explosive drum solos on record, is often looked at as a perpetual sideman and session giant. Over the past four decades he's laid down the rhythmic law for everybody from Steely Dan to James Taylor and Chick Corea to Paul Simon, but he's been making more time for himself of late; in a three year span, he's managed to deliver four albums that highlight his versatility ...

Extended Analysis

The Complete Arista Albums Collection

by John Kelman
December 14, 2012

When fusion first emerged in the late 1960s/early '70s with artists like trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Chick Corea and guitarist John McLaughlin, the emphasis was on guitar and keyboard heavy lineups like Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra, with an equally strong predilection for the intensity and volume of rock and a kind of thundering funk that was different than the kind of music coming from R&B and soul artists like Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire. Parallel to ...

Album Review

Cinque: Catch a Corner

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 17, 2012

Catch a Corner raccoglie in otto tracce la tecnica, l'esperienza e l'alto valore espressivo di cinque grandi musicisti, capaci di produrre musica di ottimo livello qualititativo, di derivazione mainstream. Tra di loro il saxofonista John Johnson, in forma olimpica e capace di imprimere soli dal carattere deciso, al quale si affianca in prima linea l'organo Hammond del sempre puntuale Joey DeFrancesco, ben amalgamato con il piano di Robi Botos, che alterna strumento acustico ed elettrico, a seconda delle atmosfere e ...

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Extended Analysis

Stanley Clarke: The Complete 1970s Epic Albums Collection

by John Kelman
February 29, 2012

Legacy Recordings' recent spate of Complete Albums Collection box sets have righted a whole slew of wrongs by bringing long out-of-print recordings back in a reasonably priced and tidily collected series. They may be relatively light on production values--simple clamshell-style boxes, mini-LP cardboard sleeves, and booklets whose information, beyond detailed track and personnel listings, is largely dependent upon how much the artist has to say, if anything at all--but the opportunity to collect an entire discography from a specific period ...

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Album Review

Jim Hall: Concierto

Read "Concierto" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
February 3, 2011

Amongst the many CTI classics of the 1970s, few stand the test of time as well as guitarist Jim Hall's Concierto, an ambitious album that, in its original form, married one side of modern mainstream with a second taken up by a 19-minute version of Joaquin Rodrigo's 1939 piece for classical guitar and orchestra, “Concierto de Aranjuez." That Miles Davis and Gil Evans had already delivered what was considered the definitive jazz adaptation on the trumpeter's 1960 classic, Sketches of ...

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Album Review

Chick Corea / Steve Gadd / Christian McBride: Super Trio

Read "Super Trio" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
May 1, 2006

He may be in his mid-sixties, but pianist Chick Corea hasn't slowed down in the least. In the past five years there's been a monumental three-week run at New York's Blue Note, focusing a bright light on acoustic ensembles past and present and beautifully documented on the ten-DVD set Rendezvous in New York (Image Entertainment, 2005). Corea re-formed his powerhouse Elektric Band for an album--To the Stars (Stretch, 2004)--and tour. He reunited with members of Paco de Lucia's band for ...