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Jazz Articles about Randy Sandke

6
Album Review

The Bix Centennial All-Stars: Celebrating Bix!

Read "Celebrating Bix!" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello


Cornetist Leon Bismark “Bix" Beiderbecke, while certainly heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong, developed his own highly stylized way of playing and improvising jazz. One wonders what musical highlights might have been accomplished had he lived beyond his 28 years. Celebrating Bix!, originally released in 2003 as a single CD album, adds selections which, due to size constraints, did not make the original release, but they all certainly “make it" here as a double CD and vinyl release. What ...

28
Album Review

The Bix Centennial All Stars: Celebrating Bix!

Read "Celebrating Bix!" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Here's a new album by the Bix Centennial All Stars honoring the legacy of the renowned cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. Sort of. Actually, most of the music on Celebrating Bix! was recorded and released in March 2003, the actual centenary of Beiderbecke's birth in Davenport, Iowa. This expanded twentieth anniversary edition includes a trio of songs not released at that time owing to limited space, and has been reissued on two CDs instead of one. Having said that, ...

18
Album Review

Allen Lowe: A Love Supine: Ascension into the Maelstrom

Read "A Love Supine: Ascension into the Maelstrom" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


There is an exhaustive property to the body of Allen Lowe's work. Composer, saxophonist, sporadic guitarist who composes on piano, and the author of several noteworthy music histories, he has released nearly two dozen albums. Lowe is a member of the quartet East Axis with Matthew Shipp, Gerald Cleaver, and Kevin Ray. A Love Supine: Ascension into the Maelstrom is an ambitious double-disc collection recorded in four sessions in 2018. The eighteen tracks were all composed by Lowe. The sessions ...

346
Book Review

Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet

Read "Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet" reviewed by Daniel Kassell


Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet Randall Sandke Hardcover; 288 pages ISBN: 0-8108-6652-8 Scarecrow Press 2010In Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet, musician and author Randall Sandke tackles the stubborn and controversial question of whether jazz is the product of an insulated African-American environment, shut off from the rest of society by strictures of segregation and discrimination; or whether it is more properly understood ...

422
Opinion

Creator vs. Interpretor

Read "Creator vs. Interpretor" reviewed by AAJ Staff


By Randy Sandke We've all heard the saying that “Jazz is America's classical music." Implicit in this notion is the belief that jazz is equally worthy of respect, admiration and support as any 'serious' music. Over the past few decades, jazz has indeed found a greater degree of prestige, academic interest and corporate sponsorship than at any time before. But there's a downside to this parallel between jazz and classical music. Jazz seems headed towards the ...

340
Album Review

Randy Sandke: Unconventional Wisdom

Read "Unconventional Wisdom" reviewed by Francis Lo Kee


Listening to a tune like “Chega de Saudade," the ninth tune on trumpeter Randy Sandke's Unconventional Wisdom, there's the feeling that this quartet session is from a recorded concert: the honest, joyous drive of the rhythm section, the trumpet singing Jobim's melody and the guitar supporting it with clear harmonies that are rhythmically in sync. Yet, this turns out to be a well thought-out program of tunes that benefits from the pristine sound quality obtained in a studio environment.

148
Album Review

Randy Sandke and the Metatonal Big Band: The Subway Ballet

Read "The Subway Ballet" reviewed by Ken Dryden


Trumpeter Randy Sandke, considered a mainstream jazz stylist, reveals another side on this release, compiled from two sessions recorded about fifteen years apart. The Subway Ballet is a wild suite scored for big band (substituting vibes and xylophone for piano) that utilizes a metatonal harmonic approach, frequently sounding like snippets of music written for a suspense movie. Key centers are often fleeting, though most of the charts seem tightly scored. Sandke's compositions fit his individual titles perfectly; ...


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