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Go: Organic Orchestra and Brooklyn Raga Massive at Painted Bride Art Center
Go: Organic Orchestra and Brooklyn Raga MassivePainted Bride Art Centerjny: Philadelphia, PAOctober 6, 2019 While Philadelphia's Painted Bride Art Center has been presenting jazz, improvised and/or experimental music for half a century, it's still entirely possible this was the most sweepingly wide, boundary-defying cross-cultural performance the venue has ever seen. The sizable and amorphous Go: Organic Orchestra collective already serves up a fascinating kind of severe culture shock on its own, as demonstrated in several ...
read moreRecollections of an Oslo experience
Oslo has its week-long Jazz Festival taking place in mid-August at Sentralen and various locations from bar to church to opera house and university auditorium in the Norwegian capital. This already indicates something of the variety of the presented music. This year's edition has been the last one under the thirteen-year aegis of bassist and festival director Edvard Askeland. He will be succeeded by Øyvind Skjerven Larsen, not a stranger to the international jazz world through his manifold national and ...
read moreSatoko Fujii - Joe Fonda: 4
When pianist Satoko Fujii and bassist Joe Fonda first teamed up on Duet (Long Song Records, 2016), neither was familiar with the work of the other. Three short years later, “other" no longer applies, as the instantaneous rapport Fujii and Fonda found has led to a growing portfolio of cutting-edge music. 4 is the latest entry from these exceptional innovators. The prolific Fujii has released more than eighty albums, including a dozen in 2018, in recognition of her ...
read moreMarc Copland: And I Love Her
There was a time when Marc Copland was releasing multiple albums every year, sometimes as many as three or four, like in 2009, when the veteran pianist (who began his musical life as a saxophonist) released his second solo piano album, Alone (Pirouet); an intimate duo date with veteran bassist Gary Peacock, Insight (Sketch); and the final entry in Copland's New York Trio triptych of piano trio recordings, Night Whispers (Pirouet). Times have changed, and while releases under ...
read moreJean Toussaint: Live At The Jazz Cafe 091218
Most times, the transatlantic flow of jazz musicians is from east to west. Less frequently, as with Jean Toussaint's relocation from New York to London, it is contrariwise. Hot from four years as a member of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers's Jazz Messengers, Toussaint arrived in Britain in 1987. He soon established himself as a bandleader, and also as teacher. One of his first pupils was Ingrid Laubrock. In 2008, Laubrock made the reverse journey, setting up home in ...
read moreChucho Valdés With Kenny Garrett At SFJAZZ
Chucho Valdés and Kenny Garrett SFJAZZ San Francisco Jazz Festival San Francisco, CA October 4, 2019 A commanding Cuban pianist, the stately Chucho Valdés is best known as the founder of legendary Cuban band Irakere. Kenny Garrett has played with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and with the late Miles Davis, among others, but has gained notoriety for his work as a solo artist. Since his first recording in 1990, his awards and accolades have ...
read moreJoel Miller, Markus Howell, Curtis Taylor and More
This week we focus on the new albums by Joel Miller, Markus Howell and Curtis Taylor, three new releases from Leo Records and a selection of new and recent recordings from across the wide world of jazz... Playlist Joel Miller “Song Story 1 : Gyre" from Unstoppable (Joel Miller) 00:00 Markus Howell “Get Right" from Get Right! (Posi-tone) 04:51 Curtis Taylor “Bolivia" from Snapshot (Curtis Taylor Music) 10:29 Blazing Flame “Back into the High Tide We Go" from ...
read moreVibe Time
There aren't as many famous vibraphonists in jazz as, say, piano or saxophone players, but the best of the breed are as influential as almost any of the horn blower or key tickler. In this episode, the boys talk about two mallet-masters from the pages of history, and two sponsored by Blue Note in more recent years—a phenom from the early 2000s, and a brand new poster boy. Pop matters looks as two fine acts from the eighties that just ...
read moreJessica Ackerley: A New Kind Of Water
Guitarist Jessica Ackerley operates in roughly the same semi-abstract realm as Joe Morris and Mary Halvorson but her playing covers more ground, bouncing between folk lyricism, spacey abstraction and fierce prog-rock riffing. The other members of her group, alto saxophonist Sarah Manning, bassist Mat Muntz and drummer Stephen Boegehold, are adept at blending with her varied styles and making sinewy, challenging music. On several tracks Ackerley's thick, percussive picking creates a simmering jumble of sound along with Muntz's ...
read moreGalway Jazz Festival 2019
Galway Jazz Festival 2019 Various venues Galway, Ireland October 2-6, 2019 Bat song may be a first at a jazz festival, but then they do things differently here in Galway. Bats were in and plastic was out. No plastic laminates or cable ties, no plastic on outdoor advertising, no plastic wrapping on backstage food, and no plastic bottles were permitted by the organizers of GJF19. With carbon footprint awareness the name of the ...
read moreChick Corea: Mr. Eclectic
It's altogether plausible to posit Chick Corea's career as one of, if not the most, colorful in all of contemporary jazz. And that very declaration arrives apart from recognition of the varied shapes and sizes of the groups he dubbed 'Return To Forever.' In recent years, apart from notable collaborations on stage and in the studio with the likes of Bela Fleck and Gary Burton, the keyboardist/composer has regularly commandeered his Electrik Band in addition to the group he co-leads ...
read moreOuch!
Dear Mr. P.C.: Should jazz musicians marry one another? --J.S. Dear JS: Here's something that may surprise you: Tone deafness is a dominant gene, which means the ability to carry a tune is recessive. Since most jazz artists—when forced to—can carry a tune, the ability to play jazz is probably also recessive. Genetics tells us that if jazz musicianship is recessive, two jazz musicians who marry and procreate have a ...
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