Jazz Articles
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Nick Maclean Quartet feat. Brownman Ali: Convergence
by Glenn Astarita
The Nick Maclean Quartet is a highly respected Canadian outfit, here featuring upper-echelon trumpeter Brownman Ali, marked by a deep reverence for the past and a bold leap into the future. Central to this album's appeal are its original compositions, which are not merely exercises in style but profound statements of artistic identity. These pieces are deeply influenced by the innovative spirit of Herbie Hancock's work in the 1960s, among other Blue Note Records artists during this fertile period for ...
read moreNick Maclean: Can You Hear Me?
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Nick Maclean plays in his comfort zones with his ensemble work in the funkified electric jazz group Snaggle, and in his New York City-style, Herbie Hancock-influenced modern jazz group, the Nick Maclean Quartet. But the solo format—at least in the recording studio—is new territory to him. Undaunted by the prospect, he offers up a double CD of solo piano music, Can You Hear Me?. His influences are worn on his sleeve, starting with Herbie Hancock's “Dolphin Dance," ...
read moreChelsea McBride's Socialist Night School: The Twilight Fall
by Jack Bowers
As is the case with her largely anomalous music, composer / arranger Chelsea McBride's Toronto-based Socialist Night School is less a brick-and-mortar academy than a malleable concept, open to almost whatever definition the viewer (or listener) has in mind. McBride doesn't simply “write" music, she “sees" it, much as a painter visualizes what is to adorn a canvas; thus the Night School's second album, The Twilight Fall, represents, in the words of Daniel Jamieson's liner notes, “an aural expedition through ...
read moreModus Factor: The Picasso Zone
by Dan McClenaghan
Modus Factor, a trio based in jny: Toronto, says it creates “Electro ambient improvisational bedlam." An accurate description of their sound except, perhaps, for the bedlam part (for the most part). Featuring a drums/bass/electric trumpet line-up, with effects, the comparisons that come to mind are Nils Petter Molvaer's spacey approach on sets like Switch (OKeh Record, 2014) and Buoyancy (OKeh Records, 2016). And speaking of bedlam, a line could be drawn to trumpeter Cuong Vu's steroidal ambience. But ...
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