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Brian Landrus: Red List
by Jerome Wilson
Saxophonist Brian Landrus created this project with a purpose summed up in its subtitle, Music Dedicated to the Preservation of our Endangered Species. The album was made to create awareness about all the animal species on Earth in danger of extinction, thirteen of which are explicitly referenced here. For most of these, such as the Malayan tiger and the snow leopard, only a few hundreds or thousands are still alive. For the Javan rhino, there were only 67 left at ...
Continue ReadingBrian Landrus: Red List
by Jack Bowers
No matter how one receives his music, there is no doubt that woodwind specialist Brian Landrus' heart is in the right place. Red List, his eleventh album as leader, is dedicated to the preservation of Earth's endangered animal species. Landrus names thirteen, at least five of which--the kakapo, Malayan tiger, gharial, vaquita and Javan rhino--are all but gone, with less than three hundred of each species remaining. In fact, it is estimated that only eight vaquitas (a species of porpoise ...
Continue ReadingBrian Landrus: Red List
by Angelo Leonardi
L'undicesimo disco di Brian Landrus è un progetto a difesa di tredici specie animali minacciate di estinzione. Vegetariano dell'età di 12 anni e poi vegano, il sassofonista di Reno (Nevada) ha sempre operato a sostegno del mondo animale. Per sua stessa ammissione è questa la passione della sua vita, assieme al jazz. L'anno scorso, dopo aver aperto una sottoscrizione su Gofundme.com, Brian ha raccolto un settetto base più ospiti, per registrare quindici nuove composizioni dedicate alle specie minacciate, ...
Continue ReadingSteve Roach from California State University in Sacramento
by Debbie Burke
For the first installment of Jazz Ed, program director and trumpet player Dr. Steve Roach talks about the program at CSUS. Steve is the co-founder of the Sacramento Jazz Orchestra, performs in university musicals, reproduced the Beatles' White Album as a fundraiser, and is an active member of the 4 Thought Trio. At CSUS there are 13 jazz ensembles: two big bands; a Latin jazz band; four vocal jazz groups and six combos. The university serves ...
Continue ReadingSteve Roach: Early Man/Early Man, Decomposed
by AAJ Staff
Last fall Steve Roach released the first edition of Early Man as a collectors' item, a single CD encased in two slabs of slate rock. There were only 1000 copies made of this, and since there was demand for a more accessible format for this music, Roach arranged to re-release the album in a conventional CD case from the Projekt label. Not only has he done this, he has added another CD, called Early Man, Decomposed in which he takes ...
Continue ReadingSteve Roach: Early Man
by AAJ Staff
This Steve Roach release has the most unusual packaging I've ever seen on a CD. Instead of the usual brittle plastic box, the CD is sandwiched in between two quarter-inch-thick slabs of real slate rock. The plastic holder, with a printed paper insert, is stuck to the slate, and the two six-inch-square slabs are held together with four patches of incongruously futuristic Velcro. Try putting this one in your CD caddy! (An expanded version of this album will be released ...
Continue ReadingSteve Roach: Core
by AAJ Staff
Steve Roach's music, composed over the more than twenty years of his career, draws you into his own personal journey as a fellow-traveler. From his German-influenced electronic sequencer pieces of the late 70s through mid-80s, to the emergence of his much-imitated “desert" style of floating chords and aboriginal- inspired rhythms, into his percussion-heavy “shamanic" style of the mid-'90s, and then into his newest work with sophisticated computer-generated fractal electronica, Roach has constantly evolved and changed and added richness to his ...
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