Jazz Articles

Old Time Musketry: Drifter

by Dave Wayne
August 8, 2015

Old and new collide and intermingle in a variety of appealing ways on Drifter, the second long-player by the Brooklyn-based collective, Old Time Musketry. It's funny, though, how old has become new and new has become old. J. P. Schlegelmilch, the keyboardist and primary composer for the band (he wrote all but 2 of Drifter's varied and evocative compositions) specializes in the accordion, an instrument all but conscribed to the scrapheap of history until the innovations of artists such as ...

Ken Thomson and Slow/Fast: Settle

by Dave Wayne
November 16, 2014

There are ways to get to know people really well, really quickly. Many of these fall under the general category: “challenge them, somehow." For a certain time of my life this meant: “go camping with them." Really. If you go camping with a group of people, you will find out a lot about them in a very brief time. Over the past decade or so, I've found that if you play really intense music with other musicians, you will also ...

Brian Drye: Bizingas

by Troy Collins
December 5, 2010

Bizingas is the self-titled debut of trombonist Brian Drye's quartet of the same name. A versatile stylist whose resume includes stints with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Slavic Soul Party and indie rock stars like Arcade Fire, Drye's eclecticism is a common trait in the fertile Brooklyn scene he calls home, where his protean sensibility is best realized as sideman to artists like drummer John Hollenbeck, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring and cornetist Kirk Knuffke.Though he has recorded frequently with the ...

Brian Drye: Bizingas

by Mark Corroto
November 27, 2010

Trombonist/composer Brian Drye is a modern musician for whom jazz is but one ingredient in his music. To him, the term is merely a pigeonhole, meant to typecast and eventually marginalize his work. He is not alone in this prescience, on Bizingas, Drye is accompanied by three visionary and quixotic players: cornetist Kirk Knuffke; guitarist Jonathan Goldberger; and drummer Ches Smith.Like his other work in the Balkan music outfit Slavic Soul Party, the chamber ensemble The Four Bags, ...

The Four Bags: The Four Bags: Live at Barbes

by Elliott Simon
December 13, 2006

Personnel-wise, the Four Bags have a more than tenuous connection to Balkan beat masters Slavic Soul Party. Musically however, this foursome treads the more ambiguous territory of worldly flavored chamber/contemporary classical jazz. This is turf the Four Bags have nurtured and in a large way defined. Their two previous releases included, among classically grounded originals, the Beach Boys, Bertolt Brecht and Chopin. Live at Barbès, artfully mixed by downtown keyboard wizard Jamie Saft, captures the quartet during two nights at ...

The Four Bags: Offshore

by Stephen Latessa
April 23, 2005

It is difficult to determine whether an album cover affects how you feel about the music contained within, or if some cover art is just particularly representative of the musical content. Either way, Russian artist Erik Bulatov's painting Red Horizon perfectly fits the music created by the Four Bags on Offshore. Certainly the whirling whimsy of accordion and the gentle warble of clarinet recall the lazy innocence of beachfront excursions. Yet a melancholy urge towards a stilted mannerism pulls these ...

Wildman Glassmeyer Moran: BIFT

by Stephen Latessa
April 15, 2005

BIFT features free improvisation from Jason Wildman (drums, percussion), Matt Glassmeyer (saxophone, buzzaphone, and miscellaneous sounds), and Sean Moran (guitar). The music has one foot in classic fusion and the other in the music of the future, with seemingly electronically generated sounds that I can't always place.

Clockwise From is like a case study in trying to discern when freedom becomes directionless meandering. About three and a half minutes into the track, you get that familiar feeling, often ...

DDYGG: Live at Joan

by Florence Wetzel
July 5, 2004

Live at Joan’s is the terrific new CD by DDYGG, a New York-based quintet that describes itself as “a band, an ensemble, an event or an experiment.” Recorded live in July 2001 at a giant industrial space in Brooklyn, Live at Joan’s introduces a group of strong players with rich ideas and 21st century sounds.

The recording offers several first rate songs, and the various styles reflect the group’s wide range. “Rhound Things III” starts off with subdued solo guitar ...

Tim Ziesmer Trio: Transmissions

by Farrell Lowe
March 16, 2003

Transmissions instantly conveys a lyrical sense of warmth. Guitarist, composer, and group leader Tim Ziesmer harkens from the timbral school of Pat Metheny and former teacher Mick Goodrick. Indeed, his shimmering bell-like tone clusters and melodic sophistication suggest that he paid attention in class. Bassist Drew Gress and drummer Brook Martinez help make this trio come alive with their highly interactive and empathic contributions. Gress has played on more records than you can shake a stick at, and he still ...

Sunny Jain Collective: As Is

by Celeste Sunderland
February 4, 2003

Dusty streets. Delicate whispers of silk against skin. Caravans slowly crossing the desert sands. The opening bars of the Sunny Jain Collective's debut disc As Is conjure mysterious, exotic visions. But soon the melody of the traditional Indian song "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram" gets whisked away into lands pioneered by the giants of American jazz.

Composed of Jain on drums, Steve Welsh on tenor saxophone and effects, Rez Abbasi on guitar and sitar, and Gary Wang on acoustic bass, the ...