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Colin Stranahan / Glenn Zaleski / Rick Rosato: Anticipation
The piano-bass-drum trio format is a classic configuration in jazz, and with good reason: given the right musicians, this particular combination of instruments forms a perfect sonic triangle. As the jazz world mourns the November 2011 death of drummer Paul Motian--a member of pianist Bill Evans's paradigm-shifting trio, along with gifted bassist Scott LaFaro--it's good to hear Capri Records' Anticipation, which carries the tradition forward via three talented musicians. Throughout the CD, drummer Colin Stranahan, pianist Glenn Zaleski, ...
read moreColin Stranahan / Glenn Zaleski / Rick Rosato: Anticipation
Colin Stranahan, Glenn Zaleski and Rick Rosato describe their trio as a “leaderless" jazz ensemble--a democratic aggregation. Anticipation is the band's first album, and provides plenty of evidence that such a democratic approach to jazz can have clear musical rewards. The trio was the idea of Montreal bassist Rosato, drummer Stranahan--probably the best known of the three and a past member of Herbie Hancock and Kurt Rosenwinkel's groups, and who gets his name at the front of ...
read moreColin Stranahan: Life Condition
Drummer Colin Stranahan was something of a prodigy, gigging around his home town of Denver, Colorado, aged 11 years and releasing his first album, Dreams Untold (Capri Records, 2004) at the age of 17. Life Condition is his third album--inspired by a trip to India with Herbie Hancock and the Monk Institute Band. It's a mix of originals and standards performed in the main by a trio of Stranahan, alto saxophonist Ben Van Gelder and bassist Chris Smith, with tenor ...
read moreColin Stranahan: Transformation
It is good to hear that the young drummer and bandleader Colin Stranahan is continuing his musical growth with Transformation. Like his debut 2004 album, Dreams Untold, this one features an quintet (largely consisting of new personnel) and provides all original tunes, many in an Art Blakey Jazz Messengers mode. Tenor saxophonist Michael Bailey returns, joined on four tracks by trumpeter Greg Gisbert; Jim Stranahan appears once, playing alto sax on his own composition, “It's Not Always About You."
read moreColin Stranahan: Transformation
Dramatic modern mainstream jazz pours forth from Colin Stranahan's dynamic quintet, with exotic melodic stanzas flowing in many directions at once. His cohesive band interprets this program of originals directly with a positive force. It's a composer's forum. Saxophonist Remy Le Boeuf contributed three pieces and his eighteen-year-old twin brother, pianist Pascal Le Boeuf, contributed two. Bassist Dominic Thiroux contributed two, and the leader contributed two more. Colin's father, Jim, who plays alto on his contribution, wrote “It's Not Always ...
read moreColin Stranahan: Transformation
Can anybody in this band buy a beer, legally? Nobody in the rhythm section can. Drummer/leader Colin Stranahan is nineteen years old, pianist Pascal Le Boeuf is eighteen, and bassist Dominic Thiroux is just a year older. Reaching outside the rhythm team, reedman Remy Le Boeuf--Pascal's twin, incidentally--is, of course, also eighteen years of age. Which would leave all the beer runs to tenor saxophonist Michael Bailey, the old man of the core group at 21.But considering the ...
read moreColin Stranahan: Dreams Untold
"No one's interested in your lack of confidence," the late bandleader/drummer Art Blakey would tell a fledgling band member. “Get out there and play with an attitude."Drummer Colin Stranahan, whether or not he's heard that specific message, seems to have taken the spirit of the advice to heart. Though it's not so much an attitude he plays with on Dreams Untold, but an assurance and poise remarkable for a musician just seventeen years old.The drummer's father, ...
read moreColin Stranahan Quintet: Dreams Untold
"I want to state the fact that my music isn't all about how fast we can play, or how many chops we have, but to get the point across of emotion and feeling." Words of wisdom from any player at any age, but especially telling from drummer Colin Stranahan who, at the tender age of seventeen, has released his first group recording with Dreams Untold. Musicians twice his age often continue to struggle with the dilemma of style versus substance, ...
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