All About Jazz

Home » Articles | Reviews Only

JAZZ POLLS | VOTE

Articles | Featured | Future

RADIO

Pedro Melo Alves, Rich Halley and more

Read "Pedro Melo Alves, Rich Halley and more" reviewed by

the sonorous tones of the double bass echo throughout this episode, highlighted by a double hit of Israeli bassist Shay Hazan with music from new releases by his quintet and sextet, Argentina's Juan Bayon as well as Tom Abbs, and Kyle Motl with Abbey Rader's West Coast Quartet. You'll hear tracks from new albums by Pedro Melo Alves and his Omniae Ensemble, Rich Halley Trio, VWCR --a quartet powered by Ken Vandermark and Nate Wooley --Phronesis, and Hobama. It's a ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Ken Vandermark / Marker: Roadwork 1/Roadwork2/Homework1 (Box Set)

Read "Roadwork 1/Roadwork2/Homework1 (Box Set)" reviewed by

Reed player, composer and improviser Ken Vandermark has led, or been a part of, more than fifty different groups in his prolific twenty-year recording career. Along the way he has played with many of the top talents in experimental, free, and avant-garde jazz, including Joe McPhee, Joe Morris, Paul Lytton, Marcin Oles, Adam Lane, Ab Baars, Barry Guy, Paal Nilssen-Love, Augusti Fernandez, Tim Daisy, Nate Wooley, Dave Rempis, Sylvie Courvoisier, and Paul Rutherford. He formed his most recent group, Marker, ...

RADIO

A Musical Portrait of Ken Vandermark

Read "A Musical Portrait of Ken Vandermark" reviewed by

For our second contribution to All About Jazz's Mixcloud column, we introduce a mixtape series that we've curated since 2016, entitled “50/50." Through these selections we aim to present a comprehensive overview of the artists invited to play at Centro d'Arte through a mix of their music, curated by us, and of music that inspires them, selected by the artists themselves. The first installment of this series focuses on saxophonist and composer Ken Vandermark, with five tracks taken ...

IN PICTURES

Artacts 18 in St. Johann in Tirol, Austria

Read "Artacts 18 in St. Johann in Tirol, Austria" reviewed by

This year Ken Vandermark was the headliner at the Artacts Festival which takes place every March in the picturesque village of St. Johann in Tirol, Austria. Vandermark presented three of his projects and shared the stage with Jaimie Branch, Andrea Massaria, Clementine Gasser, Nate Wooley, Joe Williamson, Terrie Essels, Mette Rasmussen, Susana Santos Silva, Lotte Anker, Elisabeth Harnik, Trevor Dunn, Didi Kern, Dieb13, Alexander Hawkins and Melvyn Poore. This edition of the festival also featured ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

DKV Trio / The Thing: Collider

Read "Collider" reviewed by

Recorded live at Krakow Jazz Autumn in 2014, Collider unites two of the hardest hitting contemporary outfits in an off the wall summit. It's notable that all the members of the DKV Trio and The Thing, except bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, have a history of working with the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, the large improvising collective par excellence of the last 10 years. That experience means that they effortlessly rise to the challenge of combining two self sufficient units to ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Barry Guy / Ken Vandermark: Occasional Poems

Read "Occasional Poems" reviewed by

For British bassist Barry Guy the concert that produced this fine double disc package occurred at the end of a four day intensive residency in Krakow culminating in the premier of an ambitious new work by his Blue Shroud Band. While for Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark, the event was the final episode in two months on the road. But whether relief or exhaustion were the dominant feelings, neither resulted in any lowering of standards or resting on laurels. Occasional Poems ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Ken Vandermark Resonance Ensemble: Double Arc

Read "Double Arc" reviewed by

For the most part, we only follow the trajectory of an artist's career many years after his work has been completed. Looking back at the career of Miles Davis, you can now play connect-the-dots from bebop to Gil Evans to modal jazz to electric Miles. Certainly, back in the day, many a listener knew not where Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970) came from. We are fortunate today to have access to so much more music and an artist like saxophonist Ken ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Fred Lonberg-Holm/Ken Vandermark: Resistance

Read "Resistance" reviewed by

When you consider all the musicians that have recorded duos with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, it sounds kind of like the SPAM Monty Python sketch comedy piece. “Yes, I'll have some Fred Lonberg-Holm and Ken Vandermark." What, you don't want Fred Lonberg-Holm and Axel Dörner, or Fred Lonberg-Holm and Mats Gustafsson, or Fred Lonberg-Holm and Peter Brotzmann, or Fred Lonberg-Holm and Paal Nilssen-Love, or Fred Lonberg-Holm and Frode Gjerstad or Fred Lonberg-Holm and Nick Stephans, or Fred Lonberg-Holm and David Stackenäs, ...

LIVE REVIEWS

Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville 2014

Read "Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville 2014" reviewed by

Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada May 15-19, 2014 Victoriaville, Quebec is a town of some 40,000 two hours east of Montreal, a regional center known for the sober pursuits of dairy and wood production. For the past three decades (beginning in 1983), the town has also hosted one of the world's most renowned festivals of adventurous music, the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, or Victo, as it is popularly ...

CD/LP/TRACK REVIEW

Ken Vandermark Resonance Ensemble: Head Above Water / Feet Out Of The Fire

Read "Head Above Water / Feet Out Of The Fire" reviewed by

Listening to the music Ken Vandermark writes for large ensembles do we dare compare him to Duke Ellington? Both band leaders and composers wrote and arranged music to be played by a select troupe of musicians and both suffered the fate of surfing the knife edge of innovation. Ellington always seemed to be delivering scores with the ink still drying to last minute rehearsals. Same for Vandermark who has the added burden of an international cast from Chicago to Stockholm ...