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Michael Goetz
Richard Baratta: Another Kind of Bird
by Pierre Giroux
Charlie Parker's music has withstood every conceivable tribute. It has been copied, analyzed, celebrated, and occasionally embalmed by its own importance. Imagine the surprise at the release of drummer-percussionist Richard Baratta's Another Kind of Bird, which is not another museum-piece salute to Bird. Baratta and pianist-arranger Bill O'Connell treat Parker's compositions as living, breathing works capable of absorbing new colours, rhythms, and fresh perspectives without sacrificing their lineage. Baratta expands his customary sextet into a formidable, horn-driven ensemble ...
Continue ReadingRichard Baratta: Another Kind of Bird
by Jack Bowers
Even today, more than seventy years after his death at the young age of thirty-four, the legendary alto saxophonist Charlie “Yardbird" Parker remains incomparable, as a player and composer who almost singlehandedly changed the vocabulary of jazz, introducing revisions and concepts that have never worn thin or gone out of style. Simply put, no one had ever heard jazz played the way that Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke and a handful of others approached it in the early ...
Continue ReadingDoug Munro: Putt Lake Toodleloo
by Mike Jurkovic
In unsettled and unsettling times, it is a relief to know that Putt Lake Toodleloo is within easy reach. Its humble stance, breezy accessibility and easy familiarity serve as a respite from the dark anxious winds that gather. Two-time Grammy nominee and NAIRD award winner, guitarist/educator/composer/author Doug Munro, who founded the Purchase College Jazz Studies program and served as its director from 1993--2002, leads his spirited octet, the La Pompe Attack, through a swaying mix of originals and ...
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