Jazz Articles about Thomas Morgan

About Thomas Morgan

Album Review

Ayumi Tanaka, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Strønen: Windflower

Read "Windflower" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
September 29, 2026

Ayumi Tanaka plays with precision and spare motifs. There are no wasted notes, and her work owes much to the balance between her country of birth and the country of residence. She has a virtuosic restraint. Rhythmic structures are often flexible, non-metrical, or thin, closely mirroring the organic movements of nature. In an interview she said, “I really think that what I do is trying to learn from nature. The way we play with space is not quantifiable. I want ...

Album Review

Ayumi Tanaka, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Strønen: Windflower

Read "Windflower" reviewed by Frank Housh

by Frank Housh
August 17, 2026

Ayumi Tanaka's Windflower uses Nordic jazz's musical vocabulary against an ancient Japanese landscape, creating depth and beauty by the space left empty. Tanaka is a Japanese pianist and composer for whom Norwegian jazz feels “very personal," explaining how it “made the air feel alive." She was determined to figure out how. She moved to Norway in 2011 and earned a master's degree from the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. She augmented her studies by improvising “together with the ...

Album Review

Ayumi Tanaka, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Strønen: Windflower

Read "Windflower" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
August 6, 2026

Japanese pianist and composer Ayumi Tanaka has become a distinctive voice on the Scandinavian jazz scene since settling in Oslo. A graduate of the Norwegian Academy of Music, she has forged musical relationships with Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen and American bassist Thomas Morgan, whose intuitive rapport lies at the heart of Windflower. Following early performances at Oslo's Victoria, Nasjonal Jazzscene, the trio attracted the attention of ECM producer Manfred Eicher, leading to this debut recording. The album follows on ...

Album Review

Bill Frisell: In My Dreams

Read "In My Dreams" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
February 18, 2026

At the opening of Beautiful Dreamer, Bill Frisell's biographer, Philip Watson, recounts a formative dream Bill Frisell once had--an experience the guitarist has said permanently altered the way he thinks about sound, color, and the nature of “real music." In the dream, Frisell enters a dark building, climbs into a vast library, and encounters hooded, monklike figures gathered around a table. “We want to show you what things really are," they tell him. First, they reveal “what colors really look ...

Album Review

Thomas Morgan: Around You Is A Forest

Read "Around You Is A Forest" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala

by Giuseppe Segala
December 2, 2025

Il valore, la sensibilità e la duttilità musicale di Thomas Morgan lo ha portato a essere uno dei contrabbassisti maggiormente richiesti della scena contemporanea. Ora, con questo lavoro, il primo a proprio nome dopo tanta attività nei contesti più differenti, documentata in una copiosa serie di album fondamentali del jazz contemporaneo, Morgan ha deciso di affermare la propria volontà nel tracciare un proprio disegno personale, per dare vita in qualche senso a un lavoro esemplare, che incontri pienamente le proprie ...

Album Review

Emi Makabe: Echo

by Angelo Leonardi
September 29, 2025

Conferma il quartetto del suo esordio (Anniversary Greenleaf 2018) la cantante a strumentista giapponese Emi Makabe, con l'aggiunta di tre prestigiosi ospiti: il chitarrista Bill Frisell, il pianista Jason Moran e la bassista Meshell Ndegeocello, che interviene declamando alcuni testi. Anche in quest'album s'incrociano stilemi giapponesi e jazzistici in una miscela generalmente delicata e suadente, anche se non mancano momenti ritmicamente articolati. Emi Makabe ha una voce da soprano leggero, canta con raffinata essenzialità e interviene suonando lo ...

Album Review

Jakob Bro: Live at The Village Vanguard

Read "Live at The Village Vanguard" reviewed by Fran Kursztejn

by Fran Kursztejn
September 28, 2025

Legendary guitarist Jakob Bro revitalized the pensive romanticism of the ECM Records sound with last year's Taking Turns, and continues his crusade in Live at the Village Vanguard. His strategy is simple: a diverse cast, both in style and generation, slavishly dedicated to a dynamic trajectory, like a viscous alloy rushing violent in an aged riverbed. In this case, the mold is the enduring memory of Paul Motian, chiefly represented by former band mate Joe Lovano, but haunting even Bro's ...