Jazz Articles

Bob Baldwin: Henna

by Geannine Reid
June 23, 2020

Pianist Bob Baldwin grew up with music in his bones. His father Robert Baldwin, Sr., (1926-2008) was also a jazz pianist who worked with bass legends Keter Betts and Art Davis. His cousin, Larry Willis, also a legendary jazz pianist, is known for his association with Blood, Sweat and Tears/Jerry Gonzalez & Fort Apache Band. With older men in his family influencing a young Baldwin, the osmosis of their influence was inevitable--Baldwin would also become a leading figure on piano. ...

Mal Waldron: One More Time

by Mike Neely
October 12, 2008

One More Time is an intimate portrait of two neglected masters with a third master, Steve Lacy, stepping in to add his low-key tip of the hat. Mal Waldron and Jean-Jacques Avenel are the focus of this release that serves as a tribute to Waldron, one of jazz's most versatile pianists who died in 2002. The highlights of Waldron's career are striking by any standard. Many of his recordings with Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Eric Dolphy, and Steve ...

Bill Carrothers: Armistice 1918

by Chris May
January 19, 2005

As we approach the hundredth anniversary of the start of “the war to end all wars," international conflict blights the planet like never before, and unilateral might-is-right aggression is increasingly replacing diplomacy and consensus. Bad karma rules and history sometimes seems, like the poet said, to be “one fucking thing after another." So Bill Carrothers' Armistice 1918--a deeply affecting creative jazz suite about the horror and waste of the First World War, and by extension any war, performed ...

Yaron Herman/Sylvain Ghio: Takes 2 to Know 1

by AAJ Staff
January 8, 2005

Though the piano/drums duo format is not unprecedented (Russ Freeman and Shelly Manne were doing it back in the early '50s), the Sean Lennon look-alike, Israeli-residing-in-Paris pianist Yaron Herman avoids the seemingly inevitable avant-garde tendencies that this experimental pairing has conveniently evolved into over the decades. A very thematic player who remains conscious of where he's come from and where he's going, Herman works in waves of developing momentum in meditative, even seductive fashion, while drummer Sylvain Ghio ...

Bill Carrothers: Armistice 1918

by John Kelman
October 25, 2004

It has been written that if pianist Bill Carrothers hadn't found his way to music, he'd have likely become a historian, something that is clear from an earlier record, The Blues and the Greys , and now even more so with his new release, Armistice 1918 , an ambitious two-CD set which, over the course of two hours, presents a look at the First World War in a deeply personal way, telling the story of a man and woman who ...

Edouard Ferlet: Par Tous Les Temps

by John Kelman
April 19, 2004

Edouard Ferlet is a young French pianist who has been making a name for himself in Europe with his own projects and, most notably, with two recordings for bassist Jean-Philippe Viret’s trio. Etant Donnes and Considerations , both released on Philippe Ghielmetti’s progressive Sketch Music label, established Ferlet as a new artist on the scene with formidable technique and a unique approach. Par Tous Les Temps , his first solo piano outing, is a remarkable recording that continues to assert ...

Mirabassi/Boltro/Ferris: (((AIR)))

by John Kelman
March 9, 2004

When one thinks of chamber jazz, one hardly thinks of an ensemble consisting of piano, trumpet and trombone. This should not be such a foreign ide,a though, since the three instruments represent a broad range, both harmonically and texturally. And the trombone, at one time considered more of an ensemble instrument, is taking its rightful place at the forefront, as a result of the work of artists including Robin Eubanks, Yves Robert and Steve Turre. Add American Glenn Ferris to ...

Daniel Humair: Baby Boom

by John Kelman
March 7, 2004

Trust drummer Daniel Humair, who has had more musical lives than the proverbial cat, to continue to reinvent himself by surrounding himself with a group of young players who are equally at home with both composed and free styles of music. Baby Boom unites Humair with saxophonists Matthieu Donarier and Christophe Monniot, bassist Sebastien Boisseau and guitarist Manu Codjia—all players who have only emerged on the scene in the past couple of years. But what they lack in years of ...

Marc Ducret: Qui Parle?

by John Kelman
March 5, 2004

Now in his late forties, guitarist Marc Ducret has built a career out of taking the essence of various traditions and turning them on their side. With Qui Parle? Ducret has fashioned perhaps his most ambitious and audacious effort to date, a seventy-five minute suite that is bold and almost entirely indefinable in terms of how it references any known style. This is a daring release that creates its own vernacular.

Ranging from chamber-like passages to punk-informed rock themes to ...

Marc Copland/Gary Peacock: What It Says

by John Kelman
March 5, 2004

With a brooding approach that is nonetheless elegant in its delicacy, pianist Marc Copland teams up for yet another series of outstanding duets, this time with double-bassist Gary Peacock. What It Says represents some of Copland's most impressionistically abstract work and, for Peacock, his most successful duet outing this side of his work with Ralph Towner.

The pairing of Peacock and Copland is not exactly new; Peacock played on Copland's 1998 Savoy date, Softly , albeit in more traditional trio, ...