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Articles | Featured | Future

INTERVIEWS

Nik Bärtsch: Possibility in Paradox

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Like the master-less samurai his primary band is named for, Nik Bärtsch forges a path and follows a code all his own. The pianist's music is best described by his own key phrases “ritual groove music" and “Zen funk," merging Eastern minimalist simplicity and patient trance with the interplay and communal aspect of jazz. It makes for a bundle of seeming contradictions: steadily repetitive and ever-changing, precise yet improvisational, highly cerebral and body-movingly catchy, it develops structures of sometimes breathtaking ...

LIVE REVIEWS

The Jane Getter Premonition at Iridium

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The Jane Getter Premonition Iridium New York, NY April 17, 2018 The Jane Getter Premonition's set at Iridium showcased the guitarist/composer's continuing explorations in the area of progressive rock with a set of music that was inventive, volatile, and expertly played. Primarily featuring material from her most recent studio album, On, Getter's band consisted of some of the finest musicians working in the jazz-fusion, funk, and progressive rocks genres, including guitarist Alex Skolnick (Testament), bassist ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Stephanie Richards: Fullmoon

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With the release of Fullmoon, trumpeter and composer Stephanie Richards joins the ranks of Susana Santos Silva, Franz Hautzinger, Peter Evans and Nate Wooley. This enlightened group of trumpeters have taken the art of the solo to new heights with various combinations of extended technique, microtonality, free improvisation and electronic/acoustic experimentation. Here, Richards touches on almost all of the above with her inventively deployed playing. A native of Canada--now a Brooklynite--Richards has worked across genres compiling an impressive ...

MIXCLOUD

Destination Africa! Mali, Morocco & Tunisia

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In this episode we'll explore jazz by African musicians and by foreign musicians fascinated with the African continent and its music, with a special focus on Mali, Morocco and Tunisia. Happy Listening! Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Daniel Freedman “All Brothers" from Bamako by Bus 0:59 Host talks 8:58 Toubab Krewe “Hang Tan" from Toubab Krewe (Upstream) 12:36 Bill Frisell & the Intercontinentals “Baba Drame" from Live ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Zara McFarlane: Arise!

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Zara McFarlane is a London-based singer and composer with a voice like an angel and a style that reflects her cultural roots in the Caribbean and in the mash-up that is modern metropolitan Britain, where jazz, grime, hip hop, reggae and other musics of black origin are hybridising and shape-shifting with joyful abandon. She is an alumnus of Tomorrow's Warriors, the band and outreach organisation co-founded by bassist Gary Crosby in 1991 with a special focus on young jazz musicians ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Dan Pugach: Plus One

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On this debut CD, drummer Dan Pugach shows himself to be a composer and arranger who has mastered the art of making a group sound much bigger than it is. His nonet plays intricate and soulful jazz with the punch of a much bigger band. Pugach is very good at using brawny up-tempo rhythms. The CD's opener, “Brooklyn Blues" kicks off with a New Orleans second line groove that leads into a wall of shouting staccato horns driving ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Peter Madsen: Never Bet The Devil Your Head

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It isn't essential to be a fan of Edgar Allen Poe's uncanny writings to enjoy pianist Peter Madsen's musical tribute to the author, Never Bet the Devil Your Head. But readers familiar with Poe's disturbing fiction will absolutely appreciate the thoughtful touches found in abundance on Madsen's album. With the help of the Seven Sins Ensemble, an Austria-based octet Madsen first utilized on 2012's Gravity of Love (also on Playscape) that includes a string quartet in addition to standard jazz ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Oscar Peterson: Oscar Peterson Plays

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Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson (1925-2007) was just starting what turned out to be terrific career in 1951 when jazz impresario extraordinaire Norman Granz took him into the studio to record Plays Cole Porter (Clef Records, 1952). Granz had a grand plan: To have this then-promising jazz pianist record a number of albums under the Oscar Peterson Plays tag, each an immersion into a separate Great American Songbook tunesmith. It started with Cole Porter and ran through George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Anders Svanoe: State Of The Baritone Volume 2

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Some people see a baritone saxophone and think it an obtuse and blunt instrument. Not Anders Svanoe; he sees his baritone saxophone as a sharpened, yet subtle tool. Evidenced by State Of The Baritone Volume 2, he communicates everything from shuffling boogaloos to energized free-jazz, post-bop, and folk music with an uncanny naturalness. All of this is accomplished within the difficult framework of a trio format. That's no small feat, and one I don't believe had been attempted ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Jon Hassell: Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume one)

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By the time even the most revolutionary musicians reach their ninth decade, few are any longer making edgy work. All too often, conservatism has kicked in or, if not that, a younger generation has come along and moved the goal posts. But on Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One), Jon Hassell, the creator of fourth-world music in the 1970s and other innovations since, is as venturesome as ever. Listening To Pictures is Hassell's first new release since Last Night The ...