Jazz Articles about Will Calhoun

About Will Calhoun

Album Review

The risk with a new Joe Lovano recording is that listeners may hear the résumé before the band. The Blue Note Records years, the long triangular history with Paul Motian and Bill Frisell, and the more austere ECM Records terrain of Trio Tapestry (2019) all sit close to the surface of Lovano's sound. Paramount Quartet quickly makes that kind of listening insufficient. This is not Lovano arranging familiar authority around new personnel; it is a band record in which his ...

Album Review

Joe Lovano: Paramount Quartet

Read "Paramount Quartet" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 26, 2026

Saxophonist Joe Lovano built a formidable recorded legacy on Blue Note Records, beginning with 1990s Landmarks, running through 1999's 57th Street Themes and 2013's Soundprints --among many other albums on the famed label. But a side outlet for his artistry emerged on ECM Records, beginning with his side man slot on drummer Paul Motian's Psalm (1982). Though he boasts dozens of other side man appearances on ECM Records, he did not release an album under his own name for the ...

Album Review

David Sancious: Eyes Wide Open

Read "Eyes Wide Open" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 11, 2020

After leaving Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band in 1974, keyboardist and guitarist David Sancious formed the band Tone, which was centered on jazz fusion, progressive rock, and melodic overtures. At the time, he became a highly respected artist, especially due to his drawling synth tones, fiery guitar work and penetrating rhythmic outbreaks. Moving forward, he performed with Jack Bruce and Friends, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and other notables, securing his A-list session guru status. Here, the artist sings and performs instrumentals, ...

Album Review

Will Calhoun: Celebrating Elvin Jones

Read "Celebrating Elvin Jones" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 11, 2016

Properly paying tribute to a figure like the late Elvin Jones is about more than aping a style of drumming and referencing songs; it's about acknowledging a specific life force, how it fueled the music, and how it lives on in those who Jones influenced on the bandstand, in the studio, and through his recorded work. Drummer Will Calhoun hits the mark in all of those ways on Celebrating Elvin Jones. For Calhoun, Jones was both a ...

Album Review

Will Calhoun: Life in This World

Read "Life in This World" reviewed by Luigi Sforza

by Luigi Sforza
November 12, 2014

La biografia artistica di Will Calhoun dice molto sul suo modo di concepire il jazz, la sua tecnica gli ha consentito di suonare con molti musicisti, da B.B King a Mick Jagger, da Jaco Pastorious a Jack DeJohnette, da Paul Simon a Lou Reed. Inoltre la notorietà di Calhounn è legata ai Living Colour e Public Enemy. Non sorprende quindi la quantità di elementi presenti nell'ultima produzione del l'energico batterista del Bronx intitolata Life in This World. Riferimenti ...

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Album Review

Will Calhoun: Native Lands

Read "Native Lands" reviewed by Brian P. Lonergan

by Brian P. Lonergan
February 6, 2006

On Native Lands, the electronics of drum programming and guitar loops mix convincingly with indigenous acoustic instruments from around the world. Will Calhoun is able to combine such seemingly disparate sounds, styles and even people into one landscape and still maintain the integrity of the album as a whole. It may be due to the unifying thread throughout, Calhoun's honest rhythmic experiments, as well as the varied cast joining the effort: Pharoah Sanders, Mos Def, Kevin Eubanks, Stanley Jordan, Orrin ...

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Album Review

Will Calhoun: Live at the Blue Note

by Craig Jolley
December 1, 2000

Percussionist Calhoun has hired most of Bobby Watson's Horizon quintet, but this session is not a case of Watson uncomfortably grimacing as a sideman in his own band. For one thing Calhoun's band has a more modern feel. As might be expected Watson is the strongest soloist, but he limits his contributions to playing, and he is careful not to steal the show. He plays tenor (instead of his usual alto) on a couple of cuts, giving the band a ...