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Jazz Articles about Rez Abbasi

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Radio & Podcasts

Rez Abbasi: Charm

Read "Rez Abbasi: Charm" reviewed by David Bixler


Guitarist Rez Abbasi's recordings illustrate an artist that is pressing on, going for something new, rather than making alterations to what he has already done. So when sitarist Josh Feinberg approached him about a possible Indian-jazz collaboration he initially declined, as he already had several successful recordings of this nature with pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. However, he fortunately reconsidered and they recorded Charm, a recording that is fresh and likely unlike anything that you have heard before. ...

33
Album Review

Alternative Guitar Summit: Honoring Pat Martino, Volume 1

Read "Honoring Pat Martino, Volume 1" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Each year the Alternative Guitar Summit, led by Joel Harrison, presents a concert to honor a living jazz composer/guitarist. That wasn't possible in 2021, however, as venues in and around New York City were shuttered tight by the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, it was clear that the chosen honoree, the great Pat Martino, was gravely ill and might not have another year to live. With that in mind, members of the Summit took their guitars straight to a studio to record ...

Album Review

Amina Figarova: Persistence

Read "Persistence" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo


Il pregio della varietà sostanzia la cifra artistica della pianista Amina Figarova, non circoscritta entro i soli confini del jazz. Dopo il progetto orchestrale del penultimo CD, la musicista azera residente a New York apre la finestra del suo etereo pensiero compositivo verso i territori della fusion, del funk, del rap. Da queste premesse discende un disco ibrido nella sua eccellente realizzazione, che testimonia la continua evoluzione del jazz e la nobiltà dei suoi migliori protagonisti. A far da tessuto ...

Album Review

Rez Abbasi: A Throw of Dice by The Silent Ensemble

Read "A Throw of Dice by The Silent Ensemble" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Rez Abbasi, classe 1965, pakistano di nascita ma californiano d'adozione fin dalla più tenera età, è il principale protagonista di questo album (che del resto reca la sua firma in calce), giocato nel segno di una musica di sicuro referente jazzistico, però con forti infiltrazioni etniche, com'è del resto usuale nel chitarrista (del quale, en passant, segnaliamo anche Oasis, a doppia firma con l'arpista francese Isabelle Olivier, inciso in quartetto su Enja l'anno dopo questo A Throw of Dice, 2018 ...

34
Interview

Rez Abbasi: On balancing picture with music and shifting into Django mode

Read "Rez Abbasi: On balancing picture with music and shifting into Django mode" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


To really distinguish oneself in today's vast universe of guitarists, even within the confines of jazz, more and more resembles a Sisyphus task. When so much has been said and done, a specific tone or distinctive vocabulary alone no longer suffice to set an artist apart from the crowd. It is only through the sum of the different parts--various technical, aesthetic and even philosophical ones--that a musician is able to claim a place among the original voices on the instrument. ...

15
Album Review

Rez Abbasi: Django-shift

Read "Django-shift" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


Talking about shifting. American guitarist Rez Abbasi seems capable of shifting shape and changing form from one project to the next like a creature from a J.R.R. Tolkien adventure—almost beyond recognition. If it weren't for the guitarist's inspired fret fingerings and rushed scale runs giving him his utterly unique spark. Between much praised quintet recording Unfiltered Universe (Whirlwind Recordings, 2017) and the Indian-infused collaboration Indo-Pak Coalition comprised of himself, Dan Weiss and Rudresh Mahanthappa releasing Agrima (Self Produced, ...

14
Album Review

Rez Abbasi: Django-shift

Read "Django-shift" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Django Reinhardt's music is so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget his career was relatively brief. The gypsy guitarist/composer had recorded hundreds of 78s and acetates before he died of a stroke in 1953 at age forty-three. On many early sides, he played a six-string banjo-guitar hybrid tuned in the standard tuning of a guitar. Norman Granz produced the only full LP Reinhardt session two months before the artist passed. Along with over twenty posthumous compilation releases, Nuages (Verve, 1953) ...


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