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Keala Kaumeheiwa
Felipe Salles: Camera Obscura
by Katchie Cartwright
"I've been wanting to do a project like this for decades," Amherst-based Brazilian composer and multi-reedist Felipe Salles writes of Camera Obscura. The album combines jazz and classical quartets in a program of original music inspired by a phenomenon that has intrigued artists and thinkers worldwide since the Stone Age. A camera obscura is created when light passes through a pinhole into a dark chamber, projecting an upside-down-and-backwards image onto an inside wall. In translating this visual circumstance into a ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles: Camera Obscura
by Alberto Bazzurro
Parecchi archi, un sostanziale buon gusto che evita per lo più le bucce di banana insite nel contesto specifico e magari un tantino di epidermicità di troppo caratterizzano questo nuovo lavoro del polistrumentista (qui anche in sovraincisioni multiple, specificatamente nel breve “Perception") e compositore paulista-newyorchese Felipe Salles. Gli fa contorno un doppio quartetto, jazzistico (lui compreso) e, appunto, d'archi, che dà al lavoro, certamente ambizioso, una sua anima, un suo peso specifico, posto per più versi sul crinale ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles: Home Is Here
by Angelo Leonardi
Home Is Here conclude la trilogia del compositore e bandleader brasiliano Felipe Salles (residente dal 1995 negli USA dove insegna all'Università del Massachusetts Amherst) dedicata al tema dell'immigrazione. Un'indagine musicale e multimediale iniziata nel 2018 con The Lullaby Project e proseguita due anni dopo con The New Immigrant Experience, di cui abbiamo già parlato in queste pagine. Qui Salles focalizza il tema dell'immigrazione nel jazz ed ha invitato otto protagonisti della scena di New York ad esibirsi col ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: Home is Here
by Troy Dostert
For the third recording from his Interconnections Ensemble, tenor saxophonist and composer Felipe Salles chose to put the artists first--literally. That is, he had extensive conversations with each of the guest musicians on the record before composing the pieces on which each would be featured, thus highlighting their own stylistic and personal characteristics. The result is a polychromatic, adventurous album that allows Salles' multidimensionality as a composer to flourish. And with top-shelf guests such as Melissa Aldana, Paquito D'Rivera, and ...
Continue ReadingJared Sims: Against All Odds
by Jack Bowers
Any tenor saxophonist with the surname Sims is certain to draw the attention of a seasoned reviewer, if only out of curiosity. The first name in this instance is Jared, not Zoot (well, not John). As it turns out, Sims has an impressive resume as a performer, writer, educator and leader; Against All Odds is at least his tenth album as foreman of his own group. Jared Sims is a capable player who knows his way around a horn; what ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles: The New Immigrant Experience
by Angelo Leonardi
The New Immigrant Experience è un lavoro multimediale, che combina musica orchestrale e proiezioni video, ispirato all'esperienza dei Dreamers, persone protette dal programma Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Accanto al compact disc musicale il progetto include quindi un DVD (curato dalla regista Fernanda Faya) in cui Felipe Salles intervista giovani immigrati, raccogliendo storie di vita spesso dolorose. Quelle testimonianze sono servite al bandleader da ispirazione per questo nuovo lavoro col Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble, una big band di 20 elementi ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: The New Immigrant Experience
by Jack Bowers
Is it mere coincidence, or does the rise in the number of “concept" albums by jazz big bands signal that the trend is here to stay? Trumpeter Brian Lynch won a 2020 Grammy Award for his Journey Through Literature in Music, and there have been other tenet-based enterprises within the past year by Dan Jonas, John Bailey, Eric Weiss, the WDR Big Band, Marcus Shelby, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Chris Jentsch and others. Now comes The New Immigrant Experience, ...
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Music
Perspective
From: Camera ObscuraBy Keala Kaumeheiwa
Meridian 63
From: Home Is HereBy Keala Kaumeheiwa
Against All Odds
From: Against All OddsBy Keala Kaumeheiwa
Did You Eat?
From: The New Immigrant ExperienceBy Keala Kaumeheiwa
