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Jazz Articles about John Hicks
Pharoah Sanders Quartet: Live At Fabrik
by Chris May
One reason Pharoah Sanders was such a special artist was the prismatic nature of his music. When Sanders lit on to a new avenue of investigation, he did not in the process reject what he had been doing up until that moment. Instead, he wove the new perspective into the existing structure, enriching rather than replacing it. The result was a rainbow in which the joins between what might have been, in lesser hands, incompatible instead became inaudible, and the ...
read moreJohn Hicks: Live at the Jazz Corner of the World, Jammin' Uptown & Mind Wine: The Music of John Hicks
by Graham L. Flanagan
Mickey Bass New York Powerhouse EnsembleLive at the Jazz Corner of the WorldEarly Bird2009 Alvin QueenJammin' UptownNilva-Just a Memory2008 John Hicks Legacy BandMind Wine: The Music of John HicksSavant2008 When pianist John Hicks passed away back in May of 2006, the jazz community lost one of ...
read moreThe John Hicks Legacy Band: Mind Wine - The Music Of John Hicks
by Douglas Payne
John Hicks (1941-2006) gave much to jazz over several decades but never really received the appreciation he so richly deserved. As a pianist, he proved himself in the Art Blakey and Betty Carter universities. He was also the prototypical musician's musician, a first-call pianist for many jazz greats and a magnificent accompanist to the art's best saxists, including Pharoah Sanders, Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, Archie Shepp, and David Murray.
He was often accused of hovering in McCoy Tyner's ...
read moreThe John Hicks Legacy Band: Mind Wine: The Music of John Hicks
by John Barron
John Hicks (1941-2006) was a musician's musician; a player who was held in high regard by his peers as a versatile performer who could elevate any ensemble. With Mind Wine: The Music of John Hicks, Hicks' wife, flautist Elise Wood-Hicks and pianist Larry Willis co-lead a group of the late pianist's long-time associates for a celebration of one of the most distinguished jazz personalities of the last forty years.
With the exception of Duke Ellington's Single Petal of a Rose," ...
read moreJohn Hicks/Buster Williams/Louis Hayes: On The Wings Of An Eagle
by Mark Corroto
The passing of pianist John Hicks in 2006 marks the loss of one of the quintessential New York pianists. And this, perhaps his last recording, is a stunning example of a fully developed bebop piano trio in flight.
Hicks gained the spotlight working with Art Blakey, Betty Carter and Woody Herman in the 1960s and '70s. He then migrated to avant-garde saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and David Murray before returning to the hard bop sounds of his Keystone Trio ...
read moreJohn Hicks: Sweet Love Of Mine
by Nic Jones
This polite set effectively closes the recording chapter of the late pianist John Hicks' life--and on an equally fundamental level, it might leave listeners ruing the fact that a lot of the music is simply made somewhat anonymous by the presence of too many musicians.
The opening One Peaceful Moment" is given a wistfully melancholic reading, which in itself makes a sadly belated case for Hicks the composer, and when tenor player Javon Jackson joins Hicks for a duo reading ...
read moreJohn Hicks: Fatha's Day
by Russ Musto
For those listeners who are not yet cognizant of his status as one of the most eminent virtuoso piano players in the history of jazz, this newest release by John Hicks is as good a place as any to start. Hicks is, regrettably, rarely as recognized as those of two slightly senior contemporaries, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock, with whom he shares (respectively) an opulent orchestral sound and a spare engaging melodicism.
This rare combination of musical ...
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