Jazz Articles about Tara Davidson

About Tara Davidson

Album Review

The search for identity is a sine qua non of any artist's experience and development. But for a musician like Nicky Schrire, it goes much deeper than most. Born in London, raised in South Africa, studying and entering the professional ranks in New York and working back through her initial points of origin before relocating to Toronto in 2020, this noted vocalist-composer has established herself as a globetrotter of the first order. Stylistically, as with geography, Schrire hits multiple points ...

Album Review

The Composers Collective Big Band: The Toronto Project

Read "The Toronto Project" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 18, 2023

The term Composers Collective is quite often a thinly veiled phrase that signifies “experimental" or “avant-garde" jazz. Thankfully, that is far from true on the Composers Collective Big Band's irrepressible The Toronto Project, which carries the listener on a buoyant and colorful musical journey through Canada's largest city, capital of the province of Ontario and home to a number of superb jazz musicians. True, there are some moments when the Collective veers from conservative to exploratory, but ...

Album Review

Carn Davidson 9: The History of Us

Read "The History of Us" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 28, 2021

From north of the U.S. border comes The History of Us, a warm-hearted album by the Carn Davidson 9, a Toronto-based nonet co-led by trombonist William Carn and saxophonist Tara Davidson. The album consists of a pair of three-part suites, one by Carn, the other by Davidson, separated by Carn's amiable composition, “Goodbye Old Friend," a fond salute to his late and dearly loved cat, Murphy. Carn's “Finding Home" suite, which leads things off, was inspired by ...

Album Review

The Nimmons Tribute: Volume 1 - To The Nth

Read "Volume 1 - To The Nth" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
January 10, 2021

The Nimmons Tribute is a small Canadian ensemble dedicated to honoring the living legacy of Phil Nimmons a clarinetist, composer and band leader who, in 2020, was 97-years-old and acknowledged as having done more than anyone else in bringing jazz to the mainstream of Canadian culture. A living legend, active for more than six decades, this “Dean of Canadian jazz" is a multiple JUNO Award-winning artist and recipient of the Order of Canada (O.C.) and Order of Ontario (O. Ont.), ...

Album Review

The Nimmons Tribute: Volume 1 - To The Nth

Read "Volume 1 - To The Nth" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 1, 2021

The big news in Canadian jazz circles in 2019 was that musician and educator Phil Nimmons had retired—at age ninety-six. His decision marked the end of several eras that began more than seventy years ago and included forty-six years as a music teacher at the University of Toronto, ten acclaimed recordings as leader of his own groups, numerous honors as an educator and musician, a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of ...

Album Review

Ernesto Cervini's Turboprop: Abundance

Read "Abundance" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 3, 2018

Delve into Toronto-based drummer Ernesto Cervini's discography and you find an artist who seems to be trying to be a force for good in the world. His CD releases feature his Ernesto Cervini Quartet, MEM3, Myraid3, and Turboprop (and others, for he is prolific). His is a sound that brims with buoyancy, whether it's a trio outing or a sextet. Abundance is the Turboprop sextet's third outing. The group could be considered Cervini's nod to the Art Blakey ...

Album Review

Ernesto Cervini's Turboprop: Rev

by Dan McClenaghan
October 17, 2017

The Toronto-based septet Turboprop serves, in part, as an arrangement-expanding vehicle for drummer/leader Ernesto Cervini. With his work in two ongoing, outstanding trio's—MEM3 and Myriad3—Cervini helps shape modernist jazz in the piano trio mode. Turboprop, with its three horn front line—two saxophones and a trombone—gets the chance to stretch his arranging chops, with Rev, the group's sophomore effort. Cervini is a guy who wears his joy on his sleeve. His approach—with Turboprop especially—is busy, orchestral. It is not ...