Jazz Articles about Tom Harrell

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Tom Harrell: Prana Dance

by Jack Bowers
April 14, 2009

Trumpeter Tom Harrell, always wandering, forever searching for some fresh musical pathway, embarks on another special voyage with Prana Dance, a series of expressive tone poems whose outward simplicity belies their inner depth and power.

As he has in the past, Harrell layers his eight plain-spoken compositions with spiritual undertones, none of which detracts from his improvisational purpose or that of his comrades in his quintet. Harrell has always been an uncompromising melodicist, which is readily apparent on each of ...

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Tom Harrell: Prana Dance

by John Kelman
April 4, 2009

Despite fighting health issues that would keep most people down and out, Tom Harrell has managed to create a remarkably consistent discography as a leader, in addition to a sizable collection of sessions since first emerging in the early '70s. Still, the trumpeter seems especially invigorated since signing with HighNote for Light On (2007). A true leader of the modern mainstream who works squarely in the tradition while gently pushing the envelope, Harrell's outstanding writing, a tone that could melt ...

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Harrell - Moroni - Dulbecco - Fioravanti - Zirilli - Bagnoli: The Cube

by AAJ Italy Staff
August 4, 2008

Per la gioia di chi si attende dalla musica emozioni profonde, è appena uscito un nuovo CD con Tom Harrell. È il terzo in un anno molto fecondo per il geniale trombettista statunitense: avis rara, poiché capace come pochi altri oggi di trasformare in poesia le note del pentagramma. È il suo un disco di mainstream contemporaneo caratterizzato da un forte potere suggestivo, che trascende le codificate strutture formali di riferimento. Con in più l’utilizzo di due batterie per introdurre ...

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Tom Harrell - Dado Moroni: Humanity

by AAJ Italy Staff
December 3, 2007

Humanity è un disco formidabile, destinato a lasciare una traccia significativa nella discografia jazzistica del 2007. Ne è protagonista un duo stupefacente, che ci regala un’ora di musica intensa, ricca di lirismo e pathos. Le linee melodiche lunghe e trasognate della tromba si incontrano a meraviglia con il pianismo muscolare e pirotecnico di Moroni, per un incontro condotto mirabilmente sul piano della pura poesia. Il mondo degli standard è il punto di partenza privilegiato di questa empatica collaborazione, che si ...

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Tom Harrell: Light On

by Laurel Gross
September 7, 2007

Tom Harrell is like that rare good friend who is exempt from the usual “three-day rule for house guests--after which even the best of buds can loose their bloom. If he has nothing to say, he doesn't fill your ears with empty phrases. And if he knows he can't be fully present on a visit with you, he won't be there at all. Which is exactly the way it's been with the trumpeter, who hasn't made a recording as a ...

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Tom Harrell: Light On

by Ken Kase
August 29, 2007

As the business of music makes the wobbly transition from unified collections of songs to individual tracks as the primary currency of recorded music, jazz continues to embrace the increasingly antiquated format of the album to great effect. Such is the case with trumpeter Tom Harrell's Light On, a bonafide collection of compositions and performances that are conspicuously unified, and an open challenge to the notion of “album as anachronism" in the digital age. This collection of songs was meant ...

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Tom Harrell: Sail Away

by Russell Moon
February 2, 2004

Recorded over two days in March of 1989, Sail Away is surely one of the youngest albums ever to be re-released as an OJC, and presumably the first from the CD era. Two songs from the sessions not on the original CD are included here, bringing the total time to a very generous 79 minutes. Although Tom Harrell composed every tune, the two days' sessions were not alike, and thus this disc has a “two LPs on one CD" quality. ...