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Charlie Parker Festival 2018

By Rudolph Lu

Harlem's Marcus Garvey Park's Summer Stage was the site of two separate concerts that were part of New York City's Charlie Parker Festival 2018. This 26th edition truly celebrated the diversity and styles of jazz. August 24th opened with noted vocalist Brianna Thomas performing jazz standards with her talented swinging band. Charles Tolliver led a quintet of all stars to perform music from his groundbreaking 1968 album Paper Man. The quintet featured Gary Bartz, Jason Moran, Jack DeJohnette ...

The Charles Tolliver Big Band Live at The Iridium Jazz Club

By Dave Kaufman

The Charles Tolliver Big BandThe Iridium Jazz ClubNew York, NYOctober 17, 2009Charles Tolliver leads a modernist 16 piece big band that pushes the envelope of contemporary orchestral jazz sounds. The Big Band played a four night stand at the Iridium Jazz Club and I was fortunate to catch the second set on Saturday night. The Iridium is situated in Midtown Manhattan, just a few blocks away from Time Square, the tourist corner of the world. ...

Charles Tolliver Big Band: Emperor March: Live at the Blue Note

By Troy Collins

With Love (Blue Note, 2007) chronicled the return of the Charles Tolliver Big Band, one of the most progressive big bands of the Post-War years. Inspired in part by the vibrant creative energy of the burgeoning Loft Scene, trumpeter Tolliver and pianist Stanley Cowell's cooperatively led big band was immortalized by two landmark records, Music Inc. & Big Band (Strata-East, 1970) and Impact (Strata-East, 1975). After a quartet reunion gig with Cowell in 2002, Tolliver was encouraged by fellow trumpeter ...

Charles Tolliver: Monk at Town Hall

By AAJ Staff

By Charles TolliverThelonious Monk was and is a central and seminal figure, along with Bird and Diz, et. al., responsible for the creation and growth of the jazz idiom. His patented and innovative stride-intervallic improvisatorial style was inextricably tied to his harmonic genius as a composer. In fact, nearly all of these original innovators possessed this quality. At the dawn of the creation of modern jazz in the early '40s, Monk had already worked out how to utilize ...

Charles Tolliver: Music Inc.

By Marc Medwin

Under trumpet virtuoso Charles Tolliver's direction, the Music Inc. quartet would go on to record several challenging live albums-- from locales as varied as the famed club Slugs and Yubinchokin Hall in Tokyo--for his and pianist Stanley Cowell's fledgling Strata East label during the '70s, later collected in a Mosaic Select box devoted to the group. This late 1970 studio session was the group and label's debut and features 13 additional winds and horns including Virgil Jones, Danny Moore, Jimmy ...

Charles Tolliver Big Band: With Love

By Troy Collins

With Love, Charles Tolliver's first official Blue Note session as a leader, brings the under-sung trumpeter's career full circle. His recording debut on Jackie McLean's '64 Blue Note classic It's Time, led to fruitful partnerships with many of the era's finest bandleaders, culminating in his formation of the Strata-East label with pianist Stanley Cowell in '71. Tolliver was one of the few artists to lead a progressive big band in the '70s, a fertile decade which is only now getting ...

Charles Tolliver: With Love

By Joel Roberts

Charles Tolliver burst onto the scene in the '60s as a young trumpet player to be reckoned with, appearing on seminal Blue Note albums by the likes of Jackie McLean, Horace Silver and Andrew Hill. He later fronted the adventurous Music Inc. quartet and founded his own label, Strata East, with pianist Stanley Cowell, before more or less dropping off the jazz map. But the 64-year-old Tolliver is back with a vengeance, and With Love is his ...

Charles Tolliver: With Love

By Jim Santella

Featuring the soulful trumpet soloing of Charles Tolliver and fiery band arrangements that he's created through a lifetime of paying dues, both in New York and Los Angeles, With Love drives with a powerful spirit and deep feeling.

Tolliver's writing shows an influence from Gerald Wilson, with whom he worked in the late 1960s. His trumpet soloing comes from the straight-ahead forces pioneered by Dizzy Gillespie and expands intuitively through personal experience.

Tolliver, who's 64, fronts ...

Charles Tolliver: With Love

By J Hunter

The Days of the Big Band are long gone, but large ensembles still roam the plains: JazzTimes recently detailed ongoing concert efforts by the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Jazz @ Lincoln Center, and any number of Mingus tribute bands; Maria Schneider uses ArtistShare to continue her expansion on Gil Evans; and earlier this year Dave Holland released a followup to his acclaimed big band redux, What Goes Around (ECM, 2004).

Enter Charles Tolliver, session player and sideman for Jackie ...

Charles Tolliver: Mosaic Select

By George Harris

Charles Tolliver, who along with Woody Shaw was arguably the last of the trumpet vanguard that defined the instrument's modern approach, often took the road less traveled, forming his own label, Strata-East Records, in the late '60s. This three-CD Mosaic Select release captures Tolliver (along with his familiar musical colleague, pianist Stanley Cowell) in two concert settings from opposite ends of the jazz globe. In light of the fact that these remarkable sessions have been either out of circulation or ...

Charles Tolliver: Mosaic Select: Charles Tolliver

By Javier AQ Ortiz

As a musician, Charles Tolliver almost has it all. He has gained international respect from critics and peers, as well as a grateful and patient sliver of the market that purchases his scant recordings as a leader and attends his infrequent presentations. Thus Tolliver, because of his unprolific discography and absence from the market as a performer, is a minor transitional figure in the history of jazz trumpet playing, notwithstanding his actual or eventual legacy as a label owner, musician, ...

Charles Tolliver: The Real Deal

By AAJ Staff

Charles Tolliver is the real deal. The Charles Tolliver Big Band roared into Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola with both guns blazin' for a full week of hard-swingin' artistry in August. The elusive trumpeter/composer, Mr. Tolliver, offered a rare treat to this Big Apple audience, leading his band with confidence and solid playing.Having had the opportunity to work with Mr. Tolliver over the phone in preparation for his week-long run at the club, then seeing the band in action at soundcheck, ...