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Ark Ovrutski: 44/33
by Howard Mandel
Wherever a jazz musician starts their professional journey, he or she must come to grips with what one must do to create a personal approach based on technique, imagination and feeling. Composer and bassist Ark Ovrutski likes to say that since the age of 20 he has been an “international homeless traveller." But with the release of 44/33, his third album as a leader, Ark proves he has arrived. With its program of bright melodies, tight ensemble collaboration, ...
read moreAlexis Parsons: Alexis
by Richard J Salvucci
Alexis Parsons is an honest-to-goodness jazz singer. She has considerable vocal chops, a wide range and great time. She usually comes in right on or slightly behind the beat. Except when she does not. Which makes for considerable contrast and interest. Her sense of drama is apropos ("Organ Grinder" may be the sole exception, but de gustibus) and you often have the sense you are listening to an instrumentalist rather than a singer. Or to put it differently, Ms Parsons ...
read moreAlexis Parsons: Alexis
by Jack Bowers
The self-named Alexis is the third album by New York-based vocalist Alexis Parsons. To showcase her talents, she has chosen a medley of standards (half a dozen) and lesser-known but engaging originals, opening and closing with the Cole Porter classics “Easy to Love" and “In the Still of the Night." Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins, Kurt Weill, Astrud Gilberto and even Franz Schubert are also represented. For back-up, Parsons employs two trios—pianist David Berkman, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Matt ...
read moreDavid Berkman: David Berkman Plays Music By John Coltrane And Pete Seeger
by Dan Bilawsky
Formative influences rarely fit into neat categories. At a certain, impressionable age, some music, like yet unlike anything else, simply manages to seep into a youngster's consciousness. What that particular music may be, who performs it, and what it carries within and beyond its notes and/or words, is something to be sorted out at a later date. But the seeds of influence and interest are sowed at that early stage, and that's something that David Berkman knows all too well. ...
read moreDavid Berkman: Old Friends and New Friends
by Vincenzo Roggero
I vecchi e i nuovi amici sono quelli che il pianista e compositore David Berkman riunisce in studio di registrazione per dar vita al nuovo album intitolato per l'appunto Old Friends and New Friends. Ma il riferimento è anche alla Palmetto Records etichetta con la quale Berkman debuttò nel lontano 1998, collaborò fino al 2004 prima di riannodare le fila di una proficua collaborazione con questo lavoro. Scritte nel corso dell'ultimo anno -alcune poche giorni prima della ...
read moreDavid Berkman: Old Friends And New Friends
by Budd Kopman
With Old Friends and New Friends, pianist/composer David Berkman reunites with the Palmetto label, as well as Matt Balitsaris, who both founded the label and was the recording engineer. Berkman nostalgically describes the process of making the earlier recordings as a group undertaking where disparate personalties are melded into a whole to produce a distinct sound. Besides Balitsaris, this recording features drummer Brian Blade and saxophonists Adam Kolker and Billy Drewes, who are the “old friends" from recordings ...
read moreDavid Berkman: Old Friends And New Friends
by Dan Bilawsky
Pianist David Berkman has come full circle with Old Friends And New Friends. He's back on Palmetto records, the label that released his first four records as a leader between 1998 and 2004; Matt Balitsaris, who helped shape and capture the sound on those albums, is back at the helm, serving as engineer, co-producer and sounding board for Berkman; and Brian Blade, the always in-demand drummer who appeared on three of Berkman's Palmetto releases, has returned to the fold. But ...
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