Home » Jazz Articles » Tyler Mitchell
Jazz Articles about Tyler Mitchell
Bass Is The Place: Tyler Mitchell, Jimmy Garrison, Dave Holland And More

by David Brown
This week angels & demons are at play as basset luminary Tyler Mitchell and legendary saxophonist Marshall Allen present two new Sun Ra inspired releases. Then, we follow Jimmy Garrison in and out of the Coltrane quartet, followed by more bassist led groups from Wilbur Ware, Ahmed Abdul-Malik (pictured), Linda May Han Oh and others. Bass is the place. Welcome friends and neighbors to The Jazz Continuum. Old, new, in, out... wherever the music takes us. Each week, we will ...
Continue ReadingTyler Mitchell: Dancing Shadows

by Mike Jurkovic
There's a buzz to Dancing Shadows that is akin to the first time one stumbled upon a late 1950s to late 1960s Blue Note, Riverside, Verve, Impulse! or Prestige recording and time just stopped and the music took you places you were eager to go whether you knew where you were going or not. You stared at the cover, the wall, into the new, opening world. It may well have been your first mind-altering experience without, (or in conjunction with) ...
Continue ReadingThe Spike Wilner Trio: Aliens & Wizards

by Jack Bowers
Spike Wilner, generally noted in his native New York City as an excellent jazz pianist, is even more widely known as proprietor of two of the city's leading jazz clubs, Smalls and Mezzrow. Though hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, Wilner has soldiered on, presenting live music whenever possible and forming the SmallsLIVE Foundation, a non-profit arts group dedicated to creating and propagating jazz in New York through recordings, live streaming, archiving, educational initiatives and live performances. Wilner's foundation teamed ...
Continue ReadingThe Spike Wilner Trio: Aliens & Wizards

by Pierre Giroux
In this initial collaboration between The Cellar Music Group and The Smalls LIVE Foundation, it is no small wonder that driving forces behind this effort are the founders, Executive Producers, and close friends Cory Weeds and Spike Wilner. Respected musicians in their own right, Weeds and Wilner have a common appreciation and concept about jazz music. Accordingly, having pianist Wilner lead his own trio that includes bassist Tyler Mitchell and drummer Anthony Pinciotti on this release ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra: Swirling

by Ian Patterson
Though Sun Ra departed Earth in 1993, his music has continued to thrive, first under the stewardship of John Gilmore and, since 1995, by the remarkable Marshall Allen who turned 96 in May 2020. A live Arkestra show still contains many of the elements that have been present since the 1950s and '60s--color, pageantry and music boasting the entire history of jazz. There have also been some extraordinary continuities in the personnel of the band, with several members present since ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra: Swirling

by Chris May
Saturn moved into the ascendant in October 2020 when the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen released its first studio album in over twenty years. Swirling presents new arrangements of both well-known and more obscure Ra tunes, played by a fifteen-piece lineup which includes band veterans and relative newcomers. It is a welcome addition to the Arkestra's near seventy-year catalogue. When Ra passed in 1993, tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, an on-off band ...
Continue ReadingSun Ra Arkestra: Seductive Fantasy

by Ian Patterson
It seems entirely fitting that Seductive Fantasy," the single from the Sun Ra Arkestra's first studio album in twenty years, should be a reworking of an old song, one that dates back over forty years to On Jupiter (El Saturn, 1979). With Sun Ra it was ever thus; old is new and new is old. The original Seductive Fantasy" was a sprawling, seventeen-minute affair that morphed from loose groove and extended soloing into increasingly abstract, and almost arrhythmic terrain. Significantly ...
Continue Reading