Josh Berman

Chicago Edge Ensemble: Paradoxes In Freedom

by Mark Corroto
April 23, 2025

Listening to guitarist and bandleader Dan Phillips' music can feel like trying to keep a scorecard to track all the musical lines he weaves together. Fortunately, despite his wide-ranging influences and concepts, he structures his compositions in a way that remains accessible, always grounded in the rich jazz traditions of Chicago. Paradoxes In Freedom marks the fourth release from his Chicago Edge Ensemble. The lineup remains mostly intact from their previous album, The Individualists (Lizard Breath, 2023), with ...

Chicago Edge Ensemble: The Individualists

by Mark Corroto
November 3, 2023

Let's trot out the old New York versus Chicago rivalry. Just like with their sports teams (Jets vs. Bears, Knicks vs. Bulls, etc.) music fans feel a need to chose sides. It has been like that since Louis Armstrong left the Windy City for the Big Apple in 1924 and Sun Ra in 1961. Sure NYC is the center of the world for individual jazz musicians, but Chicago has always been a more communal place for music making. Consider the ...

Natural Information Society: Since Time is Gravity

by Danen Jobe
May 11, 2023

The concept of trance is one of the oldest in the world. Many older music forms embraced trance for their rituals. One is the Gnawa musical tradition originating in Kano, Nigeria and Morocco, which uses double and triple notes repeated sometimes for hours to induce a religious state while the singer sings stories of spirits. It is played on a gimbri (aka sintir or hajhuj), a three stringed instrument featuring one short and two long goat gut strings over a ...

Mars Williams: An Ayler Xmas Vol. 4: Chicago vs. NYC

by Mark Corroto
December 14, 2020

For more than a decade, Mars Williams has been making (to borrow a phrase) Christmas music great again. He does so by exchanging the saccharine for the sublime, intersecting holiday classics with the music of Albert Ayler. Born out of his Chicago Ayler repertory band which can be heard on Witches And Devils At The Empty Bottle</em> (Knitting Factory Records, 2000), Williams applied the Gospel and spiritual nature of Ayler's methodology to Xmas music. While the eponymously titled first volume ...

Juan Vinuesa Jazz Quartet: Blue Shots From Chicago

by Mark Corroto
March 10, 2020

Chicago, a city of big shoulders, continues to present proof of poet Carl Sandburg's words from the poem of the same name... “Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning." Why is this? Because Chicago in 2020 remains the same as evoked in these words from 1914, “fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action." It is a city that welcomes all comers who can bring ...

Josh Berman Trio: A Dance and a Hop

by Giuseppe Segala
December 21, 2015

Già nel titolo è celato il carattere del CD: una danza e un salto. Leggerezza, equilibrio in continuo divenire, senso della melodia e del disegno globale. E anche brevità, luminosità, seppure percorsa dalle inflessioni dolenti del blues, da inserti agrodolci, meditativi. Da increspature del suono tornito della cornetta di Josh Berman, che scivola talvolta in avvitamenti, effetti gutturali, brontolii, timbri strozzati, sovracuti laceranti. Sintomi del blues che percorrono tutto questo lavoro, non solo nel brano intitolato così. ...

Josh Berman Trio: A Dance And A Hop

by Mark Corroto
October 18, 2015

There is a permanent exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago of 68 miniature rooms. These dollhouses for adults recreate American, French, and English rooms from last century and three centuries ago at a scale of 1 inch to a foot. Visitors lean in to marvel at the amazing detail. Drapery, carpets, and tea cups are reproduced with uncompromising skill. Same can be said for A Dance And A Hop from cornetist Josh Berman. His vest-pocket music approach invites you ...

Josh Berman at the MCA Terrace and Sculpture Garden

Source: All About Jazz
June 17, 2008

Tuesdays on the Terrace presents another inspiring season of free evening jazz concerts on the MCA's Terrace and Sculpture Garden.

Chicago musician Josh Berman returns to the MCA to perform at Tuesdays on the Terrace. As an accomplished cornetist, Berman has performed with contemporary greats Fred Lonberg-Holm, Ab Baars, Guillermo Gregorio, Jeff Parker, Tobias Delius and Robert Barry. In the Chicago community Berman lends his talent to several ensembles while serving as vice-president of the Emerging Improvisers' Organization and a ...
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Tuesdays on the Terrace: Josh Berman Trio

Source: All About Jazz
May 24, 2007

Tuesdays on the Terrace presents another inspiring season of free evening jazz concerts on the MCA's Terrace and Sculpture Garden. Hosted by local radio personalities, visitors are invited to enjoy cocktails and “lawn boxes" with cheese, crackers, and fruit or full dinner while listening to Chicago's finest jazz musicians.Dinner reservations are recommended, call 312.397.4034. In case of rain, the event takes place in Puck's. Tuesdays on the Terrace: Josh Berman Trio Tuesday, June 5 5:30 - 8 p.m. MCA Terrace ...
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