Articles by Fran Kursztejn
Nicolas Genest: Danhomey Songs
by Fran Kursztejn
Danhomey Songs is French-Beninese trumpeter Nicolas Genest's first record as leader since 2015. Despite a voraciously prolific career working with just about every Francophone master working today, but specifically under the tutelage of Aldo Romano and Henri Texier, he has only produced a handful of recordings as bandleader. Perhaps it is the personages he usually finds himself supporting, the idiosyncratic duo of Romano and Texier or titanic conductors like Terence Blanchard and Wynton Marsalis, or the simple fact of his ...
Continue ReadingRafael Toral: Traveling Light
by Fran Kursztejn
Jazz has a difficult time wrestling with its own history. All genres do, but jazz, specifically in the lethargic modern era, cannot but find itself somewhat directionless. Rock, pop, and electronica all advertise their frontrunners as “the next big thing" or “revolutionary," or otherwise contain a je ne sais quoi found nowhere else but in the artist or song in question. Certainly, very few of these promises are ever kept, but publicity around jazz frequently goes the opposite route. The ...
Continue ReadingDavid Murray: Hope Scope
by Fran Kursztejn
There should be no doubt of David Murray's position. Since the death of Eddie Harris, he is the finest tenor saxophonist in jazz, arguably one of the most prolific bandleaders in the modern age. He stands among a rare few reedmen working to redefine the sonic quality of their instrument. Looking back at any of Murray's work, he is defined by a highly ambitious, omnitraditional palette and a blaring emotionalism that brings his searing intellect right home. He is a ...
Continue ReadingNicholas Payton: Triune
by Fran Kursztejn
The multi-hyphenate Nicholas Payton premieres a new trio, recording alongside eccentric bassist Esperanza Spalding and straight-ahead luminary Karriem Riggins, a roster enough to whet any forward-thinking listener's appetites. Payton, beyond his wildly successful sideman stints with Oscar Peterson, Mulgrew Miller and Milt Jackson, has also made great strides to define his own worldly, idiosyncratic style as leader and solo artist, drawing from both his bopping lineage and the moodier, atmospheric ambitions of his peers. He parades confidently through no-nonsense bop ...
Continue ReadingFred Van Hove: WIM FANFARE - Free Music (1975 -1988)
by Fran Kursztejn
Parallel to the intrigue and innovation of the music, Jazz is a story of political and economic reorganization. In America, from the days of swing, bebop, and eventually free jazz, the story is repeatedly one of the musicians against the record companies, venues and financiers that seek to control both their wages and their artistic development. This art, beloved and respected globally, but it is also tainted by the legacies of disenfranchisement, ruthless commodification and socioeconomic neglect of even its ...
Continue ReadingJakob Bro: Live at The Village Vanguard
by Fran Kursztejn
Legendary guitarist Jakob Bro revitalized the pensive romanticism of the ECM Records sound with last year's Taking Turns, and continues his crusade in Live at the Village Vanguard. His strategy is simple: a diverse cast, both in style and generation, slavishly dedicated to a dynamic trajectory, like a viscous alloy rushing violent in an aged riverbed. In this case, the mold is the enduring memory of Paul Motian, chiefly represented by former band mate Joe Lovano, but haunting even Bro's ...
Continue ReadingPat Thomas: Sufi Women
by Fran Kursztejn
Virtuoso pianist Pat Thomas released one of the finest (and most frustrating) solo performances of this decade with 2024's The Solar Model of Ibn Al-Shatir (Otoroku), and follows with a no-less important, intimate coda in Sufi Women. “Dedicated," as Thomas proclaims, “to the remarkable contribution of Sufi women in the spiritual science...known as Sufism (Islamic mysticism) in the west," the record is fittingly a strange, multidimensional collection of ecosystems, torn from the physical jumbling of the keys to the metaphysical ...
Continue ReadingDimitris Zafeirelis: Dimitris Zafeirelis & Giorgos Gavalez Duo Jazz Parafono 1997
by Fran Kursztejn
Dimitris Zafeirelis has enjoyed well-earned acclaim in his hometown of Athens as one of the foremost guitarists, jazz composers and musical innovators his country has to offer. He has been active for at least half a century, playing everything from bop, fusion, classical, operetta and rock, all with that distinct national flavor and unrelenting style which characterizes any great performer. Parallel to his commercial career, Zafeirelis is an instructor, a highly sought-after one. Unfortunately, his domestic success has not translated ...
Continue ReadingSven Åke-Johansson: Two Days at Cafe OTO
by Fran Kursztejn
Sven Åke-Johansson's death in 2025 felt distinctly like a chapter closed. There is a cliche in Jazz to characterize players of a certain class and longstanding influence as “youthful" or otherwise endlessly inventive despite multi-decade, multidisciplinary careers. Its excessive use is justified by elements of the medium's own construction and history. Jazz itself appears to be an eternally youthful tradition, a set of lofty and difficult characteristics which coalesce into an incorruptible, universal playground. What results is an often tumultuous ...
Continue ReadingJoe Santa Maria & David Tranchina: Oblique Rhyme
by Fran Kursztejn
The integral development of post-'70s jazz has nothing to do with instruments, playstyle or compositional ethos. After bop's heyday slowly petered out, its practitioners either holding strong to the tradition or scattering to other genres in the public's favor, the necessity of a studio-produced, hierarchical set seemed to disappear with it. Granted, the bandleader model maintains its popularity today, yet more and more, independent and revolutionary musicians turn toward a more anarchical understanding of the jazz group, prizing polyphony and ...
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