Jazz Articles

Han-earl Park: Anomic Aphasia

by John Eyles
March 9, 2015

The music on Han-earl Park's third CD for Slam, Anomic Aphasia, derives from two similar but significantly different Park projects. The first is Eris 136199, an improvising trio consisting of guitarists Park and Nick Didkovsky (leader of Doctor Nerve) plus saxophonist Catherine Sikora. Described by Park as “the noisy, unruly complexity of the ensemble Eris 136199" they are responsible for the opening and closing tracks, “Monopod" (seen, on the actual day of this recording, in the YouTube clip below) and ...

Erika Dagnino Quartet: Signs

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 24, 2013

Italian poet Erika Dagnino runs a transatlantic- bilingual career. In Europe she works with avant-garde and free jazz musicians as Italian violinist stefano Pastor}] and English saxophonist {{George Haslam. In the States she recorded with avant-garde composer and pianist Chris Brown and leads her own New-York based free jazz quartet comprised of reed player Ras Moshe, double bassist Ken Filiano and percussionist John Pietaro. The setting of fiery free jazz fits the uncompromising temper of Dagnino's poetry ...

Erika Dagnino / Stefano Pastor / George Haslam / Steve Waterman: Narcéte

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 14, 2012

This Anglo-Italian quartet presents its version of improvised jazz with poetry. The Italian side comes from poet and writer Erika Dagnino--who recites her poems in English--and violinist and double bassist Stefano Pastor. Their English partners are veteran improvisers and frequent collaborators, saxophonist George Haslam and trumpeter Steve Waterman. This recording features a happy marriage between the serious, orderly and expressive reciting of the poems and playful, instrumental improvisations. None is being subjected to the other--there is enough ...

Stefano Pastor: Songs

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 28, 2012

Songs is virtuoso Italian violinist Stefano Pastor's attempt to explore song form through his solo violin, aided only by different sound processors and his voice--feeling the sound of his voice as well as his violin physically, inside his body, and directly, without anything but his own body, as Pastor writes in the liner notes. On this album, Pastor deconstructs and reconstructs the melodies of six well-known songs in an attempt to claim their melodies as his own. ...

Pinski Zoo: After Image

by Chris May
August 5, 2006

Pinski Zoo burst onto the British delinquent-jazz scene in the early '80s, around the same time as Neneh Cherry's Rip Rig & Panic.

Rip Rig & Panic sweetened their avant-garde jazz content with vocals, guitars, songs with hooks, and some savvy rock and roll image building. Pinski Zoo, by contrast, made no concessions to the broader marketplace...or to anything at all. They served up a raw, unfiltered mix of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler-inspired tenor saxophone improvisations and rough-sex funk. ...

Tippett/Grew/Riley/Thomas: Pianoforte

by Andrey Henkin
May 13, 2005

The impetus for this album came from a meeting between pianists Stephen Grew and Keith Tippett at a London club. What resulted was a live concert from 2003 documenting a piano recital that included Grew, Tippett, Pat Thomas, and Howard Riley. The format of the album is straightfoward, if the music is far from it. Grew takes a long solo turn; he is then joined for two short duos with Thomas. Grew departs, leaving Thomas to make his ...

George Haslam/Borah Bergman/Paul Hession: The Mahout

by Ty Cumbie
May 23, 2004

On The Mahout, three well established musicians meet, almost for the first time, and produce an album from thin air. Yes, this is free improvisation in the age of instancy, but this is still a remarkably spontaneous product. According to the brief liner notes, the trio met for a beer, then recorded the next morning. Evidently it was only one beer—these men are no college kids, and the music reveals no trace of hangover. The title track, if anything, might ...

Harrison Smith Quartet: Outside Inside

by Glenn Astarita
October 1, 2001

The U.K. based, “Harrison Smith Quartet” provides substantial correlation to the title of its new CD, as they most effectively delve into the outside and inside of modern jazz with this set consisting of exceptionally strong material. Multi-reedman, Harrison Smith leads his band through a series of intricately devised movements, spanning lushly organized voicings, budding undercurrents and vivid dreamscapes on the opener, “Outside Inside.” However, the musicians’ periodically kick the proceedings into high gear via melodically tinged themes and the ...

Robert Jarvis: Carving Up Time

by Glenn Astarita
April 1, 2001

If ever there was an album title that symbolized the music exhibited from within, trombonist Robert Jarvis gets his point across rather illustriously with Carving Up Time. With this release, featuring a multinational cast of predominately Dutch performers, the leader slices and dices through time and space via a compositional approach brimming with memorable interludes, concisely stated melodies, abrupt tempo changes and dashes of subtle EFX.On “What Say You Did ?”, the quartet interrogates sublime themes with faint ...