Jazz Articles about Tim Hagans

Tim Hagans / Bob Belden: Re-Animation Live!

by Jim Santella
November 1, 2000

Hip-hop rhythms, turntable scratches, distorted spoken word voices and eerie synths usually make for some other kind of music. Not our jazz. But Tim Hagans and Bob Belden bring this message around by way of what Miles Davis was doing in the later part of his career. Fusion. Elements from both worlds make the total picture seem pretty darn interesting. Hagans’ tightly muted trumpet trades fours with Belden’s soprano saxophone. Each of them stretches out with quite a bit of ...

Tim Hagans/Bob Belden: The Light

by Todd S. Jenkins
October 1, 2000

Given the technical considerations, I didn’t expect that Hagans and Belden would be able to translate their groundbreaking 1999 projectAnimation/Imaginationto the live stage, but they proved me wrong in astonishing fashion. This new disc documents the band’s performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival with Hagans on trumpet, Belden soprano sax, Scott Kinsey keyboards and samples, David Dyson bass, Billy Kilson drums, and DJ Kingsize on the turntables.

This project seems to work better on many levels than similar attempts to ...

Tim Hagans / Bob Belden: Re-Animation: Live in Montreal

by Todd S. Jenkins
October 1, 2000

Given the technical considerations, I didn’t expect that trumpeter Tim Hagans and saxophonist Bob Belden would be able to translate their groundbreaking 1999 project, Animation/Imagination (Blue Note), to the live stage, but they proved me wrong in astonishing fashion. This new disc documents the band’s performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival with Hagans on trumpet, Belden soprano sax, Scott Kinsey keyboards and samples, David Dyson bass, Billy Kilson drums, and DJ Kingsize on the turntables.

This project seems to work ...

Don Sebesky: Joyful Noise

by David Adler
January 1, 2000

Duke Ellington tribute records there have been by the dozen, but this one surely stands out as among the best. Big band arranger Don Sebesky brought together the cream of the crop: trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, trumpeter Tom Harrell, altoist Phil Woods, pianist Jim McNeely, guitarist John Pizzarelli, bassists Dennis Irwin and Ron Carter, and other fine soloists and section men. All these stellar players are in top form. It’s especially nice to hear Woods and Harrell together again — Harrell ...

Don Sebesky: Joyful Noise - A Tribute To Duke Ellington

by Jack Bowers
November 1, 1999

Joyful? Absolutely. Noise? Not on your bass drum, compadre.If it has taught us nothing else, the “Year of Ellington” now drawing to its close has shown that there are an almost infinite number of ways in which to enter and throw light upon the Duke’s abundant storehouse of enduring musical treasures. Don Sebesky has chosen the big–band route — the one most favored by the maestro himself — to stylishly renovate half a dozen opulent melodies by Ellington ...

Tim Hagans: Animation * Imagination

by Douglas Payne
April 1, 1999

Little in 44-year-old trumpeter Tim Hagan's lengthy, mostly post-bop career prepares you for the intensely pleasurable shock of Animation * Imagination. Without giving too much away, Hagans (who's billed for the first time here by his surname only) serves up a drum 'n' bass masterpiece that has as much to offer a dedicated jazz listener as a young, casual clubgoer.Surprisingly, he set out to make himself a “heavy metal" album in the tradition of his youthful heroes -- ...

Tim Hagans: Biography

by Douglas Payne
April 1, 1999

The title of trumpeter Tim Hagan's latest Blue Note recording, Animation Imagination, aptly describes the tenor of his new tunes, a batch of gritty, electronic, groove-driven numbers informed by the seminal jazz-funk fusion of the late '60s-early 70s. With his angular and lyrical trumpet lines arcing over the oftentimes speedy bears, Hagans takes the music out to the edge, so far so that even he and his band of cohorts were surprised by the results of their collective interplay. “The ...