Jazz Articles about Vinny Golia

Vinny Golia: Music for Like Instruments: The Clarinets

by Michael Davis
March 27, 2006

Quick, when was the last time you were confronted by a quintet of clarinets? Even in the wide-open world of creative jazz, who out there puts five black sticks in your ear and makes you like it? Yes, this is the latest installment of Vinny Golia's Music for Like Instruments series, and as with the others, he's aided by some of Southern California's leading up-and-comers. Brian Walsh, for instance, can be heard to good effect on recent releases by Harris ...

The Vinny Golia Large Ensemble: 20th Anniversary Concert

by Rex Butters
February 4, 2006

The Vinny Golia Large Ensemble 20th Anniversary Concert Nine Winds 2005

Vinny Golia continues to make history in Los Angeles with the release of this DVD, the first on his Nine Winds label. Shot on three cameras with excellent sound recording, the program features a good look at 36 of the West Coast's most gifted musicians laying it on the line. Alex Cline, Sara Schoenbeck, Jeff Kaiser, Jeff Gauthier, Jason Mears, Mike Vlatkovich... the ...

Vinny Golia: One, Three, Two / A Gift for the Unusual / Music For Like Instruments; The Flutes

by Brandt Reiter
October 14, 2005

Several years ago, the esteemed jazz critic Gary Giddins named Sonny Rollins' This Is What I Do his #1 album of the year. Among its many other merits, Giddins celebrated what he referred to as the record's “LP-ballpark length. “You can actually take it in in one sitting, Giddins wrote, adding, “How many 75-minute epics, excellent in sections, become wallpaper by the eighth nine-minute track? How many, indeed. My answer: most. Cases in point: three albums by ...

Vinny Golia: A Gift for the Unusual: Music for Contrabass Saxophone

by AAJ Staff
August 8, 2005

West coast sax maven Vinny Golia brings out a set where he plays the tubax, a new type of contrabass saxophone designed by German inventor Benedict Eppelsheim. A standard contrabass saxophone is a rather unwieldly beast, often difficult to tame. Apparently, the tubax solves many of these shortcomings by being both a full-sounding and controllable instrument.

Right from the start, the opener finds the tubax often sounding like a contrabass clarinet, yet with a metallic and more powerful sound. Lasting ...

Vinny Golia: Music for Like Instruments: The Flutes

by Rex Butters
July 2, 2005

The prolific Vinny Golia returns with a highly anticipated flute record. As with the other entries in the Music for Like Instruments series, Golia enlists his unit from the cream of the local scene, then directs them in the astonishing textural and technical realizations of his unique musical vision. His muscular webs of sound avoid flutistic sentimentality and reveal a power not commonly associated with flutistry.

“Lonely Michael opens the collection with the first of four tastes of the Wasabi ...

A Fireside Chat with Vinny Golia

by AAJ Staff
April 6, 2005

Groucho Marx coined the playful commentary: “Only one man in a 1,000 is a leader of men. The other 999 follow women." Guidance is particularly pressing for improvised music, which of late has seen a marked decline in inspiration. The Los Angeles creative community profits greatly because of men like Wadada Leo Smith, Bobby Bradford, Roberto Miranda, and Vinny Golia, are all one in a 1,000.

All About Jazz: You were invited to the Total Music Meeting (2004).

The Vinny Golia Quintet: One, Three, Two

by John Kelman
April 6, 2005

Sometimes adversity can engender the most remarkable responses. Woodwind multi-instrumentalist Vinny Golia and his quintet had landed in Belgium the morning of September 11th, 2001, having taken off from New York a few hours before the terrible tragedy of the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks, only then to discover what had happened. When the promoters gave the group the option of cancelling the tour and trying to find its way back home, the musicians decided to stay and play because, in ...