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David Liebman, Jeff Williams: In Duo
by Neil Duggan
There is a wonderful hidden treasure trove of jazz recordings which keep being unearthed from old radio broadcasts, forgotten corners of attics or, in this case, boxes of old cassette tapes. Drummer Jeff Williams was delving through some old cassettes made during his extensive career. He found a recording from an improvisational session he made in 1991 with saxophonist Dave Liebman. The recording was made at a session at Bar Room 432, on the West Side of 14th Street in ...
read moreDan Blake: Da Fé
by Jerome Wilson
A lot of personal factors go into saxophonist Dan Blake's music on this CD, such as his concerns about the environment, his Buddhist teachings and his social activism. What comes out of this is a style of electro-acoustic jazz which is alternately meditative and fiery. The basic music here was performed in the studio by a quartet of Blake on saxophone, Carmen Staaf on piano, Dmitry Ishenko on bass and Jeff Williams on drums. The tunes were then ...
read moreDan Blake: Da Fé
by Mike Jurkovic
It's comforting to know that saxophonist Dan Blake hasn't taken Thoreau's inconvenient truth that most men lead lives of quiet desperation" to heart. Instead, as his Da Fé (translated: of faith) and his apprenticeships with Anthony Braxton} and {{Julian Lage prove succinctly, Blake intends to bring the music, and the consciousness of our fragility within it, to the fore, in hopes the listener can shake the malaise too and pick up the call for action. Blake escorts his ...
read morePaul Dunmall, Percy Pursglove, Olie Brice, Jeff Williams: Palindromes
by John Sharpe
Bassist Olie Brice had an inkling that it might be worthwhile introducing two of his collaborators who had never played together before, British reed titan Paul Dunmall and American drummer Jeff Williams. It proves devastatingly correct on Palindromes. They unite, together with trumpeter Percy Pursglove, on a collective live album--recorded at London's Cafe Oto, in February 2020, during a short tour--which dazzles at every turn. Williams, a veteran of bands with the likes of Dave Liebman, Stan ...
read moreDan Blake: Da Fé
by Mark Corroto
Saxophonist-composer Dan Blake's Da Fé ("of faith"), a meditation on our world in crisis, may have taken, as a starting point, the lyrics to Lou Reed's Busload Of Faith" from the über-cynical New York (Sire, 1989) recording, You can depend on cruelty / crudity of thought and sound / You can depend on the worst always happening / you need a busload of faith to get by." What with global warming, income disparity, hunger, and homelessness, the gentle folk of ...
read moreJeff Williams: Road Tales - Live At London Jazz Festival
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Some live albums impress with the sophistication of restraint or sonic clarity, others simply boast energy. Veteran drummer Jeff Williams' Road Tales: Live At London Jazz Festival unmistakably belongs to the latter. Vested with two handfuls of original compositions and an adept cast of sidemen, Williams delivers a fiery set of saxophone-led post-bop that revisits a number of tunes from the drummer's past albums and presents a couple of new pieces. Since joining Whirlwind recordings, Williams has been ...
read moreJeff Williams: Bloom
by Roger Farbey
In a new departure, Jeff Williams has forsaken the quartet, quintet or sextet configurations of his previous four albums for Whirlwind in favour of this very convincing trio format. In tandem with this slimmed-down enterprise, he's employed a pianist and composer who is undoubtedly a rising star of jazz. Carmen Staaf graduated with a joint degree from Tufts University (Anthropology) and the New England Conservatory (Jazz Performance) and thence became one of Berklee College of Music's youngest faculty members. She's ...
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