Jazz Articles
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SJZ Collective: SJZ Collective Reimagines Monk
by Doug Collette
Until a saucy swagger kicks in on the fourth and final track, Blue Monk," it's difficult if not impossible to recognize this music as a tribute to the late Thelonious Monk And that's perfectly appropriate--no similarly-conceived homage should be overly familiar. But it is also a tribute to the ingenuity of the SJZ Collective, and the prominence of Brian Ho's organ, which is crucial to this record's distinction. Yet, as with that concluding cut, and the opener, Green ...
read moreWally Schnalle: Idiot Fish
by Tyran Grillo
For his ninth album as leader, and with over 40 years of experience at the kit, drummer-composer Wally Schnalle has pulled out all the stops. Working sound bytes into delicate infusions of soul, jazz, and electronica, Schnalle nourishes an integrated field of sound that at once evokes seventies nostalgia and progressive futurism. Toward achieving this effect, he employs the skills of a prodigious trio of West Coast musicians. Guitarist Hristo Vitchev, bassist Joe Constantini, and keyboardist Frank Martin make for ...
read moreWally Schnalle: The Suit
by Stephen Latessa
"The Suit," drummer Wally Schnalle writes in the liner notes to his new album of the same name, is simply a metaphor for a myriad of musical constraints such as: idiom, genre, common practice, expectations, bag, style, and convention. Each of these, and more, I find can impose severe limitations on creativity. And so the straight jacket (Suit) image. Seeking to avoid such restraints, Schnalle casts the net far and wide both compositionally and instrumentally on The Suit. Historic jazz ...
read moreWally Schnalle: That Place
by Joel Roberts
Drummer Wally Schnalle leads an impressive West Coast ensemble on an album of what could be called post post-bop." More precisely, it's modern, exploratory jazz that still, generally, retains melody and recognizable form.Schnalle's 11 original compositions here range from hard funk to almost-free jazz. A few of the tunes put me in mind of the sorely missed Don Pullen/George Adams Quartet, thanks to soaring saxophone work from Charles McNeal and soulful, percussive piano from Jeff Pittson.All ...
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