Interview News

Australian Singer Mark Sholtez Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
December 5, 2007

It's been more than a year now since Mark Sholtez's debut album Real Street (Verve, 2006) was released. Exciting things have happened since, mainly in his home country of Australia. Real Street celebrated ten weeks in a row at the number one position on the Jazz and Blues Album Charts, and was also nominated for the Aria Awards in the category of Best Jazz Album. To bring things somewhat full circle, Sholtez then proudly accepted the 2007 APRA Music Award ...

Continue Reading...

British Genre-Busting Group Aufgehoben Interview at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
December 4, 2007

Aufgehoben is a band that defies categorization, a band unlike any other; its music is freely improvised, with only the sketchiest of plans being agreed upon in advance. And yet its music ends up sounding a million miles away from improv, and even further from jazz. The reasons are twofold: the sound, which is pumped-up, full-on metal rock music, with everything turned up to the max, and the post-production and mixing, which the raw material undergoes, enhancing the sound further ...

Continue Reading...

Bassist/Composer Eberhard Weber Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
December 3, 2007

It's impossible to tell the story of European jazz without mentioning bassist/composer Eberhard Weber. One of the true virtuosos of the bass, the German-born Weber has an immediately recognizable, singing tone--even when he's not performing on his trademark, self-designed electrobass. Like his American counterpart Jaco Pastorius, Weber wasn't shy about making his instrument heard--his round, supple lines didn't tend to disappear into the background, nor was their role exclusively rhythmic or supportive.

Weber's 1974 debut, The Colours of Chlo, remains ...

Continue Reading...

Bassist Larry Ridley Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
November 29, 2007

Bassist Larry Ridley has one of the most impressive pedigrees in all of jazz. After coming up in his hometown of Indianapolis, playing with Freddie Hubbard and James Spaulding, Ridley relocated to New York, appearing on some of the 1960s most important records with Hubbard, Roy Haynes, Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean and Dexter Gordon. During the 1970s he recorded his first album as leader, played as a sideman with James Moody and Duke Ellington, and was ...

Continue Reading...

Singer Calabria Foti Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
November 28, 2007

When someone like Sammy Nestico, famous for his arrangements for the Count Basie Orchestra and Sarah Vaughan, says a lady can sing, you had better listen to her because he knows his business well: producing great songs for great singers. The truth is that Nestico could hardly be more positive about Calabria Foti--who has just released, A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening (MoCo, 2007)--saying, “Calabria is the complete artist."

Over and over, critics remark how she draws the “bare ...

Continue Reading...

Pianist Steve Lantner Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
November 27, 2007

Steve Lantner's current run of creative output may be below the radar, but the quality of his recordings is off the charts. His debut as bandleader came in 1997 alongside longtime cohort/violist/violinist Mat Maneri in an adventurous set of duets that had Lantner playing both acoustic piano and a synthesizer set ninety degrees apart [Reaching (Leo)]. Lantner furthered his exploration of microtonalities on Voices Lowered (Leo 2001), where he played two pianos tune pitch apart alongside Joe Maneri and Joe ...

Continue Reading...

Pianist Mark Soskin Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
November 26, 2007

Mark Soskin listened to a litany of great jazz pianists growing up in Brooklyn and attending Colorado State University, where he was pursing classical studies before the jazz influences ushered in a switch to Berklee College of Music in the 1970s. The various styles and approaches to music went into forming his musical personality, as did listening to saxophone players. The result, over the years, has been Soskin's presence as an outstanding pianist offering his skills and sensibilities to a ...

Continue Reading...

Singer Susie Arioli Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
November 22, 2007

This summer, AAJ contributor Mary Ann Lacey interviewed Susie Arioli before and after her closing concert for the 2007 Montreal International Jazz Festival. Arioli and her partner, Jordan Officer, make up the core of the Susie Arioli Band, whose gentle jazz and swing ballads have enraptured audiences across the country and abroad since their start in 1997. Arioli sings in a soft but clear voice while playing brushes on the snare drum. Her repertoire includes jazz tunes like “Pennies from ...

Continue Reading...