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Black Art Jazz Collective
Black Art Jazz Collective: Ascension
by Ian Patterson
The name has obvious political resonance. Indeed, the raison d'être of the Black Art Jazz Collective, the sextet founded by Wayne Escoffery, Jeremy Pelt and Jonathon Blake in 2013, is to celebrate African American excellence on the one hand, and--not unrelated--to raise political consciousness on the other. The BAJC's debut album,Presented By The Side Door Jazz Club (Sunnyside Records, 2016) paid homage to W. E. B. Dubois and Barack Obama, while recalling, too, the history of slavery. Ascension plows a ...
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by Jack Bowers
On Ascension, the Black Art Jazz Collective, a like-minded sextet co-founded in 2012 by trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and saxophonist Wayne Escoffery to salute the artistry of their mentors and musical heroes while moving the idiom forward into the twenty-first century, is unbending in its allegiance to the straight-ahead canon espoused by the architects of modern jazz. It's a stance that gives rise to pluses and minuses. On the upside, this is splendid music, rhythmically and melodically pleasing, ...
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by Maurizio Zerbo
Il nome del gruppo rispecchia paradigmaticamente gli intenti di questo CD. Tra omaggi a politici e jazzisti, le otto tracce proposte celebrano in chiave modern mainstream la composita cultura afroamericana del Novecento. Orientati sul versante postboppistico, gli assoli brillano per fluidità di fraseggio e tecnica sopraffina, riscattando ampiamente la rigidità del canone. Si impongono esposizioni avvincenti e soluzioni stilisticamente enciclopediche, grazie a musicisti di grande personalità. Sul piano dell'architettura musicale si avverte l'affettuoso rimando alla più recente ...
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by Franz A. Matzner
Formed by a cross-section of contemporary jazz's leading voices, the Black Art Jazz Collective has a simple goal as political as it is salutary: create a platform for artists of the same generation to collaborate musically and promote the recognition of African- American cultural and political figures.Comprised of Wayne Escoffery (tenor sax),Jeremy Pelt (trumpet), James Burton III (trombone), Xavier Davis (piano),Vicente Archer(bass), and Jonathan Blake(drums), the BAJC hearkens back to similar creative groups established at various points in ...
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by Budd Kopman
The Black Art Jazz Collective was founded in 2013 by saxophonist Wayne Escoffery, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and drummer Johnathan Blake, with bassist Dwayne Burno added shortly thereafter, and further expanded by trombonist James Burton (III) and pianist Xavier Davis. The group's first performance was Dizzy's Club Coca Cola in April, 2013. Sadly, Burno died in December of that year, and was eventually replaced by Vicente Archer. The avowed purpose of the group is to celebrate Black culture, particularly jazz, but ...
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Many jazz fans break out in a sweat when they see the word collective" in the name of a jazz group. One assumes the music is going to be avant-garde and free form to the point of incoherence. You'll be happy to know that that the Black Art Jazz Collective's new album Truth to Power (HighNote) is warmly stormy and soulfully engaging. This collective is a sextet that has been around since 2014 and features topnotch musicians carrying on the ...
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Recent Listening In Brief: Black Art Jazz Collective, Lynn Arriale
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Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Black Art Jazz Collective, Armor of Pride (High Note Records) Half of the Collective’s members are leading lights among jazz artists in their forties and early fifties. They include trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery and pianist Xavier Davis. The younger trombonist James Burton III, bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Jonathan Blake blend into a modern mainstream sextet inspired, at least in part, by Wayne Shorter’s writing during his Art Blakey period (and since) and by Miles Davis’s pre-electronic ...
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