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Christy Doran: Undercurrent - Live at Theater Gutersloh
by Ian Patterson
Irish-born, Lucerne-based guitarist Christy Doran is as versatile as he is prolific. From the beguiling duo collaboration with Chinese pipa virtuoso Yang Jing that was No. 9 (Leo Records, 2013) and the swaggering alt-rock of New Bag's Mesmerized (Double Moon Records, 2013) to Bunter Hund's genre-busting, accordion-cum-guitar driven Walkin' The Dog (Unit Records 2014) and the experimental electro-acoustic Kontaktchemie (Boomslang Records, 2016) with drummer Alfred Vogel, Doran's music is nothing if not a moveable feast. Undercurrent--the fourteenth in a series ...
read moreMartial Solal: My One And Only Love: Live at Theater Gütersloh
by Dan Bilawsky
English poet Samuel Johnson famously and accurately remarked that “He that runs against Time has an antagonist not subject to casualties." With that statement, Johnson essentially cut to the ultimate truth behind man's battle with mortality, the powers of change, and the swift dominance of the aging process. But he didn't say it all. What he failed to address was the other side of the coin--those rare few that, while still on Earth, manage to flip Time from adversary to ...
read moreChristy Doran: Undercurrent - Live at Theater Gutersloh
by Glenn Astarita
This release by acclaimed Irish-Swiss guitarist Christy Doran (Tim Berne, Carla Bley, Pierre Favre) denotes volume 14 of the European Jazz Legends series, all performed at the German venue, Theater Gutersloh. With the trio Sound Fountain, Doran synthesizes his mega-talented musical persona, along with nods to one of his primary influences, Jimi Hendrix. Indeed, the audience was most appreciative as the trio opens the set with a capacious walking blues motif on “You'd Never Know You Know," where ...
read moreMiroslav Vitous: Ziljabu Nights - Live at Theater Gutersloh
by Glenn Astarita
This live album celebrates the 8th edition of the German record label's European Jazz Legends series, culminating in a book to be published in 2018. And each album is finalized with an interview track. So, it would make sense that eminent Czech bassist and co-founder of Weather Report, Miroslav Vitous would be included in the progression of this series. Other than drummer Roberto Gatto, the quintet comprises the same personnel who appeared on the successful Music of Weather Report (ECM, ...
read moreJurgen Hagenlocher: Leap In The Dark
by Edward Blanco
German-born saxophonist Jürgen Hagenlocher's third album as a leader, Leap In The Dark, is an interestingly designed mix of traditional and modern-styled jazz--an interesting walk through a selection of eight sophisticated, airy and remarkably accessible original compositions. Recording in New York, Hagenlocher formed a new quintet for this album, retaining trumpet luminary Alex Sipiagin from his previous disc, and putting him alongside veteran pianist David Kikoski, bassist extraordinaire Boris Kozlov and drummer Nate Smith.The saxophonist--who has recorded as ...
read moreJerry Bergonzi: Three Point Shot
by Greg Simmons
Musicians often benefit from the stimulus provided by a interacting with a new group of cohorts. If nothing else, personnel changes can remake the creative process and offer dramatically altered results. In an art form like jazz, that leans heavily on improvisation, this can only be a good thing. It is, therefore, a pleasant surprise to hear tenor saxophonist/educator Jerry Bergonzi working with an altogether different rhythm section in Europe, consisting of two Polish musicians. Better still, this trio has ...
read moreKen Thomson and Slow/Fast: It Would Be Easier If
by Bruce Lindsay
Ken Thomson, New York based saxophonist and composer, describes the music of Slow/Fast as “21st Century Third Stream." It's an apposite description, for it certainly brings together elements of jazz and classical music, but it underplays the third element of Slow/Fast's sound--the influence of rock. All four members of Slow/Fast, heard on the band's debut, It Would Be Easier If, have roots in rock music, and it's these roots that most clearly inform the excitement and aggression to be found ...
read moreJim Beard: Revolutions
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Few big band music is as exiting and swings with such abandon as the music played by the various incarnations of ensembles that gather together in the name of Charles Mingus, and that played by bands sometimes assembled by Carla Bley and, of course, the music directed by the one and only Maria Schneider. And then there is this music written by Jim Beard and performed by him and a few guests but largely directed by the magisterial Vince Mendoza, ...
read moreJim Beard: Revolutions
by Mark F. Turner
Jim Beard might just be one the best modern jazz composers; correction, music composers, you've never heard of. Since the mid 1980s he's either, performed, produced or written compositions for the likes of Wayne Shorter, Michael Brecker and Pat Metheny, and recently can be heard providing his wares on Walter Becker's (of Steely Dan) recording, Circus Money (Mailboat Records, 2008). Yet it's Beard's own critically acclaimed (if obscure) recordings, beginning with his 1990 debut, Song of the Sun ...
read moreElliott Sharp's Terraplane: Forgery
by Eyal Hareuveni
Guitarist Elliott Sharp, one of the most influential and innovative figures on the avant-garde New York downtown scene of the last generation, claims that his blues outfit Terraplane (coined after Robert Johnson's “Terraplane Blues") is actually a pop band that lacks only popularity. He is absolutely right. Forgery—the group's fifth release—is its most direct, compact, emotional and, ultimately, most matured to date.Sharp's proficiency is so well-versed in the blues vocabulary, inside and out, that one can imagine him ...
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