Jazz Articles about Yuma Uesaka

About Yuma Uesaka

Album Review

In a lot off ways, it is a game of catch-up listening to Brooklyn pianist/improvisor/composer Phillip Golub once he kick-starts the oddly titled Partisan Ship into high gear with “Loyalty Oath," a piece of mad musical fiction that holds attention in place with its octopi rhythms and runaway melodies rushing in all at once. Partisan Ship is oddly titled because Golub, an unapologetic polymath far out on the progressive spectrum, and his juiced and jazzed up cohorts--clarinetist and ...

Album Review

Lesley Mok: The Living Collection

Read "The Living Collection" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
May 20, 2023

Percussionist and composer Lesley Mok is a restless explorer who has also been called a sound artist. However, that designation does not give a full picture of her creative vision. Mok deftly maintains the singular balance between the notated and the improvised as well as abstraction and accessibility, thus breaking out of narrow genreist designations, to make music which is urgently relevant. All this and more is clearly demonstrated on her debut as a leader, the provocative The Living Collection. ...

Album Review

Yuma Uesaka, Marilyn Crispell: Streams

Read "Streams" reviewed by Neri Pollastri

by Neri Pollastri
December 13, 2022

La grande ed esperta pianista Marilyn Crispell incontra in questo lavoro il giovane e talentuoso sassofonista e clarinettista di origini giapponesi Yuma Uesaka per dar vita a un album caratterizzato dall'equilibrata alternanza di scrittura e improvvisazione, lirismo e libertà. La Crispell ha lavorato con molti dei più importanti maestri del jazz e dell'improvvisazione—da Anthony Braxton a Gary Peacock e Paul Motian—e ha una particolare predilezione per il lavoro in duo, che mette qui a frutto sul materiale messo ...

Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

Read "Idiom" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
April 4, 2022

Già da oltre un decennio, la complessità della canadese Anna Webber (sax tenore, flauto, composizione) ci interroga sulla possibilità di compenetrare nel jazz di oggi mente e corpo, attitudine concettuale e abbandono rituale. Non è la prima, ovviamente, a lambire questi territori impervi. Si situa, forse, in una geografia sonora che parte da Cecil Taylor e attraversa le gigantesche ombre di Anthony Braxton e Henry Threadgill. Ma, velocemente, sta atterrando in un pianeta sonoro totalmente proprio, come dimostra questo doppio ...

Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

by Hrayr Attarian
August 15, 2021

Award winning composer, saxophonist and flautist Anna Webber is a restless innovator and musical individualist. Her ninth release as a leader, the sublime and magnificent two-disc Idiom is an ambitious project which Webber pulls off brilliantly and with elegance. Five compositions from the “Idiom" series are represented here. Four are in a sparse trio setting while “Idiom VI," which fills the entire second disc, is with a large ensemble. Another one, “Idiom II," (not included here) appeared on Webber's Clockwise ...

Album Review

Ocelot: Ocelot

by Jerome Wilson
August 7, 2021

Ocelot is a trio of saxophonist Yuma Uesaka, pianist Cat Toren and drummer Colin Hinton that breaks away from the usual jazz sensibilities, playing music that unwinds laterally and slowly. The individual tracks on their CD may exist in a constant state of quiet contemplation or work up to a grand climax but they all give off a sense of close listening and communication between the three musicians. Several of the tracks stay quiet but intense for most ...

Album Review

Anna Webber: Idiom

by Mark Corroto
May 29, 2021

Is Idiom, from composer, saxophonist, and flutist Anna Webber, new classical music or jazz? Yes. Is the music scored or improvised? Again, yes. Last question: Is it demanding or easy on the ears? Both. On the heels of two stellar releases, the septet Clockwise (Pi Recordings, 2019) and the Webber/Morris Big Band recording Both Are True (Greenleaf Music, 2020), Webber was commissioned to present Idiom VI at John Zorn's Stone series. She expanded the material from one track heard on ...