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Michael Gibbs: Still Pushing The Envelope
by Ian Patterson
In a career spanning well over fifty years, veteran composer/arranger Michael Gibbs has chalked up a truly impressive range of credits, from Mahavishnu Orchestra to Jaco Pastorius, from Gary Burton to John Scofield and from Kenny Wheeler to Norma Winstone. The Zimbabwe-born maestro has worked with the very best jazz musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, but his expertise is by no means restricted to that field. In an extremely diverse career Gibbs has also collaborated with the likes ...
read moreMichael Gibbs & The NDR Big Band: Play a Bill Frisell Set List / In My View
by Ian Patterson
Though his recording career dates back to the early 1960s, Zimbabwe-born arranger, composer and musician Michael Gibbs hasn't always been as prolific as a leader as he might have been. Five albums in the first half the 1970 represented his most industrious period of creativity, as teaching, television and film work and arranging for a surprisingly wide range of artists--from Marianne Faithful to Joni Mitchell and from Mahavishnu Orchestra to Pat Metheny--absorbed much of his time over the next three ...
read moreEberhard Weber: Hommage à Eberhard Weber
by John Kelman
Despite being waylaid from playing the instrument that defined his approach to both performance and composition by a severe 2007 stroke, Eberhard Weber has managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of continuing to make recordings that revolve around his instantly recognizable, custom-made electro-acoustic instrument: 2013's Resumé and 2015's appropriately titled Encore, both on ECM Records, the label that's been home to the bassist, composer and occasional bandleader since Colours of Chloë (1974), his award-winning leader debut. Now, it's true ...
read moreMichael Gibbs & The NDR Bigband: Play A Bill Frisell Set List
by Glenn Astarita
Guitarist Bill Frisell probably never had a preconceived notion that he'd one day record with famed British arranger, conductor and composer, Michael Gibbs after taking several of his classes as a student at Berklee College of Music back in 1975. Thus, Gibbs and the legendary NDR Bigband instill a symbiotic musical relationship throughout this cunningly envisioned game-plan, where Gibbs' arrangements encapsulate and boost a Frisell set list by conveying a bilateral succession of prismatic tonal contrasts. Moreover, in- demand American ...
read moreMichael Gibbs and the NDR Big Band: Play a Bill Frisell Set List / In My View
by Angelo Leonardi
Michael Gibbs è stato un protagonista del jazz britannico di fine anni sessanta/inizio settanta, ma il suo brillante esordio come orchestratore non ha avuto i riconoscimenti che meritava. Il suo primo disco Michael Gibbs e il successivo Tanglewood 63 sono opere ricche d'immaginazione, che seguono di poco le sperimentazioni elettriche di Don Ellis e anticipano di qualche anno Svengali e There Comes a Time di Gil Evans. Nelle sue orchestre di allora (veri organici di sogno, comprendenti Kenny ...
read moreMichael Gibbs and the NDR Bigband: Back in the Days
by AAJ Italy Staff
Michael Gibbs è il decano degli arrangiatori moderni per big band e rimane saldamente al primo posto anche per la sua fantasia nell'inventare soluzioni che sembrano in apparenza semplicissime ma che nascondono una vivace arguzia e un grandissimo mestiere abbinati ad un'anima appassionata e pura, degna di un artista vero che ha attraversato la storia del jazz degli ultimi cinquant'anni senza mai atteggiarsi a star. Un po' come Gil Evans, se proprio vogliamo trovare un paragone esaltante per entrambi. L'occasione ...
read moreMichael Gibbs and the NDR Bigband: Back in the Days
by John Kelman
Michael Gibbs and the NDR BigbandBack in the DaysCuneiform Records2012Jazz may be filled with reharmonizations, reinventions and reimaginings of songs from across its entire history; few artists have, however, made their names solely as composers and arrangers. Relative youngsters like Maria Schneider, Vince Mendoza and Darcy James Argue have successfully shaped careers focused exclusively on the other side of the performance table, but when it comes to legacy artists, the name Gil ...
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