Jazz Articles

Quartet Diminished: Station Three

by Mark Sullivan
August 21, 2021

Modern Iran (technically the Islamic Republic of Iran) is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations. The former Persian Empire was especially noted for its artistic traditions, including Persian classical music, which is still a prominent performance style in 2021. The current government is not known for openness to Western influence, as exemplified by censorship of internet content and the banning or censoring of Western movies in Iran, so the country does not look like it would be receptive ...

Lafayette Harris, Jr.: Bend To The Light

by Dan Bilawsky
October 22, 2015

While art often takes cues from life, and life certainly offers up its fair share of trials, tribulations, and dark spells, pianist Lafayette Harris, Jr. prefers to emphasize the positive while pouring existential thought into his music. On Bend To The Light--the seventh offering from Harris over the past twenty-plus years--hope, happiness, and positive vibes dominate. He delivers uplifting originals that point to his past and present, investigates the work of artists as different as pop-soul crooner ...

Lawrence Casserley & Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg: Mouth Wind

by John Eyles
September 24, 2012

Recorded in May, 2010 at Lawrence Casserley's studio in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, Mouth Wind is a happy pairing of Casserley's signal processing with the idiosyncratic vocals of Belgium's Jean-Michel van Schouwburg, a pairing which benefits both of them greatly. The duo format suits each of the two in a different way; in larger groupings such as Evan Parker's Electroacoustic Ensemble or a tutti at Fête Quaqua at The Vortex, Casserley's contributions can occasionally be too subtle or muted to ...

Vorwolf: Snake's Eye

by John Eyles
January 15, 2009

Vorwolf is the percussion duo of Michael Vorfield and Christian Wolfarth, hence the composite group name. Snake's Eye consists of seven medium length tracks, none over twelve minutes. The expectations of a percussion duo will be challenged as there are not too many rhythms or breaks here that could be sampled to form the basis of rhythm tracks. The musical dialogue, with the two firing out call-and-response phrases on a range of percussion--the call of “Shave and a haircut" and ...

Burkhard Beins / Lucio Caprece / Rhodri Davies / Toshimaru Nakamura: SLW

by John Eyles
January 14, 2009

From Germany, Argentina, Wales, and Japan, an international super group no less! Just reading the participants' names raises one's hopes about this music and sets the pulse racing. Although this foursome has not recorded together before, through various collaborations too complex to detail here (including Elektro-Akoestisch Ensemble, The Sealed Knot, Q-O2, and the 2008 release on Formed Records Ij,--they are like a complex overlapping Venn Diagram) the participants have enough common history to ensure that they will be using a ...

Toshimaru Nakamura / Lucio Capece: Ij

by John Eyles
January 26, 2008

On paper, “no input mixing board (the output from the board is connected directly to the input, creating an electronic feedback loop) sounds like an unpromising instrument to play; at best very limited, at worst a non-event. Surprisingly, in the hands of its pioneer, Toshimaru Nakamura, it has become a seemingly limitless source of rich sounds which variously display the qualities of pure tone sine waves, white noise, synthesized sound, acoustic feedback and more. Often, it is tempting to describe ...

Mersault: Raymond & Marie

by John Eyles
November 5, 2007

Literary allusions from musicians are always intriguing and lead to speculation about their motives. Although Samuel Beckett and James Joyce are perennial musicians' favorites, Albert Camus is less often cited... although The Cure's “Killing an Arab lives long in the memory. If the group name Mersault could be taken as a reference to Camus, then the title of this album leaves no doubt, as it references two key characters from L'Etranger (1942). So, what conclusions should we draw from that? ...

Lafayette Harris,Jr.: In The Middle of the Night

by Michael P. Gladstone
April 26, 2007

In The Middle Of The Night is pianist Lafayette Harris' first funk and contemporary jazz album (e.g. smooth or urban jazz). That is exactly why I approached this disc with such trepidation, having positive memories of his first albums on Muse in the early 1990s. His debut, Lafayette is Here (Muse, 1993) was a fine date with Don Braden, Terell Stafford, Lonnie Plaxico and Cindy Blackman and the follow-up Happy Together (Muse, 1996) was a trio date with singer Melba ...

Second Movement: Second Movement

by Budd Kopman
February 20, 2007

Second Movement, the eponymous release by this supremely funky band, is a love-in for the jazzer who likes to move to the groove, even if only at times. Put this disc on your player and you will simply have to move your body. However, these musicians have the genre down to a science and obviously take great pride in being as tight as tight can be. If you spend much of your listening time in the more ...

EKG & Giuseppe Ielasi: Group

by John Eyles
November 27, 2006

Some combinations of “real instruments and electronics starkly highlight extreme contrasts between the two; some uses of electronics produce music that is dehumanising and alienating. At the right time and place, both of these tendencies can be very engaging, if very demanding--however, they are rarely a great deal of fun, nor are they intended to be.

But it's a mistake to judge all combinations of instruments and electronics in this way. Group is an album that counteracts both these tendencies. ...